Empowered Patient Podcast

Paul Howe, COO of Protega Pharmaceuticals, is focused on how abuse-deterrent technology can address the opioid crisis and the need for mandates for insurance coverage of safer abuse-deterrent formulations. The SentryBond technology was specifically designed for immediate-release opioids to make it difficult to manipulate pills for abuse via crushing, inhaling, or injecting. Protega partnered with software company Opus to offer a program that helps educate chronic pain patients, manage their treatment, and provides physicians with risk stratification data to improve care and reduce the likelihood of abuse. Paul explains, "Most importantly from our standpoint is to protect from the risk of misuse, abuse, and diversion, which is escalation from orally taking medications to crushing, inhaling, injecting, or smoking. Unfortunately, when that escalation happens, many times patients end up on illicit fentanyl and heroin through the black market. So what we're trying to do is stop that escalation through our abuse deterrent technology and our medication. It's called SentryBond abuse deterrent technology, the company's Protega Pharmaceuticals." "We also have a software program that we're now offering to physicians that deal and work with a lot of patients with chronic pain that really helps patients with chronic pain understand how to treat their pain and also titrate down off medications when possible, or at least get on the lowest possible dose and try multimodal care, try other types of avenues of procedures, different things they can do to help with their chronic pain." #ProtegaPharmaceuticals #PainManagement #ChronicPain #OpioidAbuse #OpioidPolicy #AbuseDeterrent. protegapharma.com Download the transcript here

Dr. George Magrath, CEO of Opus Genetics, discusses the company's experience in obtaining non-dilutive funding for its ultra-rare inherited retinal disease program. He highlights the challenges and advantages of this funding source, as well as the importance of establishing relationships with patient advocacy groups and foundations to mitigate risk and increase their attractiveness to traditional investors. The drive for non-dilutive funding for ultra-rare diseases is expected to become increasingly important in helping to get drugs to clinical trials. George explains, "Opus Genetics is a gene therapy company for eye disorders that occur in children. And these disorders are ultra-rare. It's 200 patients, a thousand patients per indication, and it's really good science. It's from Gene Bennett, who was the inventor of Luxturna, which was the first approved genetic medicine. And it does require some non-conventional thought on the financing, though, because these are so rare. And what we've done at Opus Genetics and have been really fortunate to be a part of is non-diluted funding from external sources. And that comes in the form of partnerships with patient families and organizations, like we just announced last week with RDH 12 Alliance." " It also comes with the Foundation Fighting Blindness, which has given us a number of grants and non-dilutive funding deals. And so those have been really important to Opus and have really helped us progress the programs. The way we think about that is the first principle is the clinical data we typically generate using our equity dollars. The preclinical work we try to do with non-dilutive funding, and that way we're able to focus on spending in rare scenarios." #OpusGenetics #RareDiseases #UltraRareDiseases #EyeDiseases #GeneTherapy #NonDilutiveFunding #Blindness #Ophthalmology opusgtx.com Download the transcript here

Lindsay Mateo is the Chief Commercial Officer at Weave Bio. This company has developed a platform to automate and streamline the regulatory documentation process for FDA submission for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. The regulatory lifecycle for drug development currently involves data from various sources in digital and paper formats. Weave Bio's tools are designed to automate and streamline administrative aspects of the regulatory process and create a living digital record of the development of the drug, which supports collaboration and saves time. Lindsay explains, "I look at the regulatory life cycle for any given drug program, and experts are at the core of that. Those experts, who are scientists, strategists, and project managers, essentially put all the work into the documentation that goes to regulators like the FDA here in the US. And that information goes on to allow this drug to continue through various stages of development to ultimately get to market and obviously help patients." "That is everything from early studies looking at how drugs are being handled in animals, in mice and rats, all the way through to clinical development. We start to get into humans and then again out through what gets drugs to market and even post-market expansion of various labels. So this is critical to getting any therapy to any patient with any condition. The process itself, the challenge with the process is that it's manual." #Weave #WeaveBio #Pharma #Biopharma #WeavePlatform #AINative #AutoCT #AutoND #FDASubmission #RegulatoryDocumentation Weave.bio Download the transcript here

Aspen Noonan, CEO of Elevate Holistics, a company that helps patients obtain medical marijuana cards through a telehealth consultation with licensed doctors. The qualifications for obtaining a medical marijuana card vary by state, and Elevate Holistics helps patients navigate the regulatory landscape. Many doctors are hesitant to recommend cannabis due to the federal illegality and restrictions from employers, and Elevate Holistics is filling the gaps by connecting patients looking for alternative treatments for conditions such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, and chronic pain. Aspen explains, "We are a one-stop shop for getting your online medical marijuana card. We connect doctors with patients 100% online in over 18 states to go through the process, which basically means book your appointment, fill out forms, join a video chat, call, and check for your emails because it's a hands-off experience. We really help people. I say A to Z, we don't just see you and get out. We ensure that your state application is filed correctly, so you ca your medical card at the end of the day." "You have every right to ask your primary care provider for a medical marijuana recommendation. The problem is, and the reason we started, is that a lot of doctors do not want to sign their name next to something that says cannabis. They aren't allowed to go through their clinics. Let's say they work at a hospital, they work at a big organization, and they're not allowed to attach their name to the cannabis industry. And so that's where we come in and just take patients, take a provider, put them together." #ElevateHolistics #Marijuana #Cannabis #MedialMarijuana #MedicalMarijuanaCard elevate-holistics.com Download the transcript here

Mark Goddard, Vice President of Clinical Services at Infobionic.AI, describes the remote cardiac monitoring system that provides near real-time monitoring of patients with potential cardiac irregularities. The benefit of continuous monitoring allows for early detection of arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation, a growing concern driven by an aging population and factors like obesity and high blood pressure. AI-driven algorithms are used to analyze ECG data and identify potential issues, enabling proactive treatment and prevention of complications like stroke. Mark explains, "The focus of our monitoring system is to provide near real-time monitoring of patients who are reporting maybe cardiac irregularities. The whole idea is to provide that near-real-time access to cardiac information so that arrhythmias can be identified relatively quickly. Additionally, the treatments for those arrhythmias are relatively quick as well, providing better patient outcomes. Just related to the fact that the data is always there, and it comes in maybe a minute or two behind live." "We are partnered with a major health system that has an AI engine that is basically developing AI tools that can be utilized in cardiac monitors. And just looking at the patient's ECG, they're able to determine the potential for arrhythmias that may not have occurred yet. And that's kind of what we're focusing on. The ability to review ECG and understand those little nuances that may indicate, hey, this patient's going to have an event like atrial fibrillation, which is the most common irregular rhythm there is, especially for an aging population. Identifying those folks early can really help with not only the outcome for the patient, in that they're not going to run into the problems you may have if you don't recognize you have atrial fibrillation, but it'll also decrease healthcare costs, which in the end helps everybody." #InfobionicAI #MedAI #Cardiology #AFib #HeartMonitor #CardiacTracking infobionic.ai Download the transcript here

Dr. Steven Quay, Chairman and CEO of Atossa Therapeutics, is dedicated to addressing unmet needs in breast cancer prevention and treatment. Dense breasts are a significant risk factor for breast cancer, and Atossa's lead drug candidate has shown effectiveness in reducing breast density and lowering the risk of cancer. This dual-action drug blocks estrogen receptor signaling and induces programmed cell death in cancer cells, potentially offering a more effective and more tolerable treatment option. Steven explains, "So we are very focused on breast cancer to the point that Princess of Atossa, the company is named after, was the first woman in recorded history with breast cancer about four 50 BC. She was the wife of Darius the Great, who had the Persian Empire, the largest piece of real estate before the Roman Empire. And she had a breast lesion. It was documented that her slave cauterized it with a hot poker from the fire. We didn't get a follow-up from that, but anyway, we are dedicated to all the women, including her, and since then, who have been dealing with breast cancer." "So it's a very interesting molecule. We call it a Janus molecule. Janus is the two-faced goddess. In this case, it is two-faced in a positive fashion because she addresses two different ways that cancer cells control themselves to drive the growth. Its major activity is to block estrogen binding to the estrogen receptor. So, as I said at the beginning, if 75% of all breast cancers are driven by estrogen, our drug is going to really nail 75% of all breast cancers. But then it gets even more exciting because it also has a second activity in another pathway in cancer driving called PKC beta." #AtossaTherapeutics #BreastCancer #Cancer #DenseBreasts #Estrogen atossatherapeutics.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Alex Meves, distinguished dermatologist at the Mayo Clinic and a spokesperson for SkylineDx, discusses the challenges in diagnosing and treating melanoma and how a new molecular test called Merlin can help improve risk stratification and treatment decisions for patients with early-stage melanoma. Diagnosis and treatment have traditionally used tumor thickness as a primary risk factor. This molecular test measures the expression of genes in the tumor biopsy and can help determine the extent of surgery needed and whether additional therapies may be beneficial. Alex explains, "My department, when I started to work here at Mayo, wanted me to do some translational research, and I had just come back from a postdoc in Germany, at the Max Planck Institute, and I was tasked to get some research going. And so I focused on melanoma because I thought at the time there wasn't a lot of molecular research going on in melanoma that could be translated to patients. And so we started to develop biomarkers, sort of molecular tests that we could apply to tissue, and then help patients with." "Yes, so the problem that our research is focused on is what to do once you're diagnosed with a melanoma. What you want to do is to match the right therapy to the right patient. That's the goal. There are lots of melanomas that might not be very aggressive, and you don't have to do a lot of treatment. And then there's some melanoma that's very aggressive, and you want to do lots of treatment, but it's not always obvious which melanoma is low risk and which melanoma is high risk. And so this idea of risk stratification at diagnosis becomes very important to match therapy to patients." #skincancer #melanoma #SkylineDx #PersonalizedMedicine #PrecisionDiagnostics skylinedx.com Download the transcript here

Elaina McMillan, a director of product marketing at Edifecs, describes the challenges and opportunities around healthcare data interoperability with a focus on prior authorization. Standardizing prior authorization workflows and data submissions across payers is a major focus to reduce delays and errors. Ensuring data security and patient consent are critical concerns, especially for smaller payers with limited resources to comply with mandates. Elaina explains, "Primarily, what I work on and what Edifecs is most known for is our healthcare data interoperability platform, which includes EDI standards and the new-ish since 2020 FHIR standards. So we're really focused on that. How I would explain it is the data engine that helps payers get things done with quality data through the standardization of that. In addition, we have a whole set of what we call workflow solutions or applications that you can actually build on top of the data platform. So it helps to do things like claims correction, enrollment management, value-based payments, risk adjustment, prior authorization, and consent management." "So the one that actually comes to mind for me right now, and largely that's because of the recent interoperability and prior authorization mandate, is the prior authorization workflow. A lot of providers don't like the workflow itself and the prior authorizations. What happens today generally is that providers are contracted with a lot of different payers. All of these payers have their own systems and processes through which the provider needs to submit. So one problem is that the providers are managing multiple different workflows, processes, platforms, and technologies." #HealthTech #Interoperability #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #PatientAccess #WomenInTech #WhatIRun edifecs.com Download the transcript here

Anmy Mayfield, Vice President and Dean for the Western Governors University College of Nursing in the Michael O. Leavitt School of Health, discusses the university's mission to provide accessible, online nursing education to address the nursing workforce shortage and encourage a more diverse population of nurses. The ReNEW Fund, a collaborative initiative with Social Finance, provides zero-interest, forgivable loans to nursing students. This model appeals to a diverse student population, including working adults and career-changers, by offering flexibility and employment opportunities for graduates. Anmy explains, "The ReNEW Fund is a collaboration with Social Finance, another nonprofit organization. And we have a shared goal of tackling the nursing shortage that is estimated to be about 30,000 to 40,000 fewer RNs entering the field compared to what's open to RNs. And there are a lot of barriers that can keep someone from becoming a nurse. And one of those is the cost of nursing school." "We want to make sure that we can help in one way to help mitigate that barrier to becoming a nurse. And so it's trying to fill these gaps by placing an equal investment in return on employers. Also students get zero-interest loans that are forgivable if a graduate completes their program and then works at one of these ReNEW employer partners for at least three years. So it's a pay-it-forward model." "One of the things that our program is focused on is ensuring that we're training a nurse workforce that is related or reflective of what the community looks like, because we've seen from research that patient outcomes are often improved when that happens. And so this means more men in nursing, different minority groups, etc., in nursing. We at WGU have seen a higher number of students who are first-generation, who are coming from the military, who are coming from underserved or underrepresented groups, and we're excited about that. And I think a lot of it has to do with our model. We offer our coursework online, and so a lot of times it's easier for our students to balance work and life." #FutureOfNursing #ReNEWFund #UpskillingHealthcare #NursingWorkforce #PayItForwardEducation #WGUHealth wgu.edu Download the transcript here

Dr. Frank Bedu-Addo, President and CEO of PDS Biotechnology, focuses on the challenge of cancer recurrence and the development of a targeted immunotherapy approach using nanoparticle technology. Their lead immunotherapy candidate is designed to train the immune system to detect and attack microscopic or undetectable cancer cells, prolonging survival by preventing recurrence. Early clinical results in cervical, head and neck, and other HPV 16-positive cancers have been promising, showing sustained immune response leading to long-lasting T cell memory. Frank explains, "Recurrence of cancer after treatment is actually one of the bigger hurdles we face in successfully treating cancer. So, PDS Biotechnology, as you know, we have a sharp focus on advancing our targeted immunotherapy platforms to address significant unmet needs in treating cancer. And this is actually one of those key unmet needs in cancer today. The prevailing hypothesis on knowledge is that cancer treatment, whether it's done using radiation therapy or anti-cancer drugs such as chemotherapy, both methods actually work by destroying cancer cells or halting the growth." "And so what may happen with time is that these remaining cancer cells may then grow until they can be detected or begin to cause symptoms. Now, even if the cancer has been removed by surgery, there is still a risk that some tiny microscopic cancer cells could still remain in the body. We would therefore expect the ideal immunotherapy to be able to detect these tiny microscopic cancer cells, even if they have spread to other parts of the body." #PDSBiotech #Cancer #CancerVaccines #ImmunoOncology #CancerRecurrence PDSbiotech.com Download the transcript here

Paul Romness, Chairman, CEO, and President of OS Therapies, and Olivia Egge, a member of the Board of Directors of OS Therapies, discuss osteosarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of bone cancer that primarily affects teenagers. OS Therapies is developing an immunotherapy that utilizes a weakened form of the listeria bacteria to stimulate the immune system and prevent the spread of cancer cells to the lungs and brain. Olivia's experience as a patient has motivated her to advocate for better treatment options and join the board of OS Therapeutics. Paul explains, "So osteosarcoma is quite literally bone cancer. It happens in teenagers like Olivia, after the growth comes together in the long bones, and there's some sort of miscalculation, and a very aggressive and very deadly cancer develops from that of the growth. And as a result, the cancer can usually spread to the lungs and then the brain. And that's where it gets very, very deadly. And our approach is to stimulate the immune system with a weakened or attenuated listeria that fires up the immune system and goes and finds these little culprits, little micro metastases that have survived the chemo and radiation that these kids go through. It tries to destroy those little micro metastases before they land in the lungs and the brain." Olivia elaborates, "I talk to patients all the time. Actually, I was introduced to people who became close friends during my actual treatment, but today I still do physical therapy and I'm constantly meeting kids who are in the middle of treatment and some of them have relapse, some haven't, but so I'm constantly meeting new patients and it's just evident that we need better treatment options. I see how weak they are from chemo. They're all, especially with osteosarcoma, you usually have to have a joint replacement or amputation, and chemo just weakens you. So it makes it even harder to recover from that. And I mean, these treatments are just so old. And so for sure, seeing all of these patients going through active treatment just reinforces how badly we need new treatment options, especially treatment options like surgery and immunotherapy." #OSTherapies #Osteosarcoma #SolidTumors #Immunotherapy #ListeriaCancerImmunotherapy #ComparativeOncology #CanineOsteosarcoma ostherapies.com Download the transcript here

Dan Schmitt, President and CEO of Actuate Therapeutics, is developing a cancer therapy that inhibits GSK3β, a key enzyme that is hijacked in cancer cells to drive tumor growth. Inhibiting this enzyme can impact the cancer cells and stimulate an immune response against the tumor. Actuate selected metastatic pancreatic cancer as their first target due to unmet need and promising data for their lead drug candidate. This could represent a significant advancement in the treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer, offering a new standard-of-care option. Dan explains, "So, GSK-3β is a known quantity across a number of inflammatory diseases. It was understood when we first started the company that, particularly in cancer cells, GSK is hijacked in its activity. Basically it's been shown that in normal cells, GSK-3β sits in the cytoplasmic domain and there it's involved in multiple paths, basically in glucose metabolism. But in cancer cells, it translocates into the nuclear compartment, and there it's accumulated at much higher levels and then sits upstream of a pro-oncogenic set of pathways, all mediated by NF-κB. NF-κB is notorious in cancer. It regulates gene expression involved in tumor growth and progression, chemoresistance, and protects tumor cells from death." "So it's been very difficult to target NF-κB directly, but we can target GSK-3β directly, specifically and potently, and therefore downregulate those key oncogenic processes. And that's really where we started the company, that set of activities of this protein. What's been shown since we've been in the clinic is that there is also a resulting upregulation of immune response from the host towards the cancer itself based on this inhibition of GSK-3β as well." #ActuateTherapeutics #Cancer #PancreaticCancer #MetastaticPancreaticCancer actuatetherapeutics.com Download the transcript here

Andrea James, Chief Financial Officer at iMDx, is focused on expanding access to innovative molecular diagnostic testing staring with a test for monitoring transplanted organ health. The test measures the donor-derived cell-free DNA which can indicate the need for drugs to target organ rejection before invasive procedures are required. The company is developing a kit-based version of the test that can be run by hospitals rather than relying on centralized labs, to increase access to this diagnostic and improve transplant outcomes. Andrea explains, "We changed our name on June 17th from OncoCyte, as you had just referenced, to Insight Molecular Diagnostics Inc. We're now going by iMDx, and our mission is to democratize access to novel molecular diagnostic testing to improve patient outcomes." "We actually have three pieces of IP, intellectual property, and we are initially commercializing in transplant. So we measure a biomarker called donor-derived cell-free DNA, don't get too hung up on it. That's a lot of words. It basically looks for fragments of DNA in the blood, which can indicate transplanted organ damage and therefore rejection. And so that is where we are commercializing first." "What's really interesting is that the innovations in this space are, okay, so let's say you've been on dialysis, that's a really tough life. You finally get your transplanted kidney, and now let's say your body is starting to reject it. You're one of those one in five who were a match, your kidney was a match for you, but then your immune system is attacking it anyway. That used to be almost a death sentence." "Your options there were you're going to lose your kidney, you go back on dialysis, or you lose your life. But now there are therapies that are coming out to treat antibody-mediated rejection, or AMR, and our test is being used to monitor the efficacy of those therapies." #iMDx #MolecularDiagnostics #Molecular #Diagnostics #Healthcare #PrecisionMedicine #Genomics #Decentralized #LiquidBiopsy #DigitalPCR #Transplant #Localization #Labs #PointOfCareTesting #RapidCare #Democratization imdxdxinc.com Download the transcript here

James Hereford, President and CEO of Fairview Health Services, describes this Minnesota-based healthcare system's $600 million turnaround and the importance of focusing on people and processes, not just technology changes. Addressing staff shortages, quality of care, and patient experience led to finding a holistic approach that improved financial outcomes and changed the culture in a sustainable way. Investments have been made in community programs like food access and vaccination events, recognizing the impact of social determinants of health on patient outcomes. James explains, "When doing this, we have to think about sustainability, and there are things that you can do, like mass layoffs, that can change the short-term economics of an organization. They're just not sustainable. The work hasn't gone away. You haven't changed the nature of work, and we really tried to focus on the people in the process side of this and really make our focus on our processes." "The other problem with thinking only about the financial turnaround and the direct cost drivers is that it's not the only measure of success for a healthcare organization. It's also about the quality and safety of the care we provide. It's about the experience we provide for our patients, and it's about the culture and the environment in which our caregivers and others provide that care. And so we had to be thinking more holistically about the nature of the turnaround and what we had to do to achieve all of those outcomes." #FairviewHealth #Hospitals #Healthcare #FinancialTurnaround #HealthcareDelivery #FoodAccess #DigitalHealth #LeadershipSkills #Minnesota fairview.org Download the transcript here

Steve Butts, Co-Founder and CEO of Arrivo BioVentures, is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies that target the root causes of disease rather than just treating the symptoms. Their drugs treat major depressive disorder and acute pancreatitis through novel epigenetic mechanisms of action. Sex-based differences were observed in clinical trials where the drug SP-624 showed efficacy in females but not in males, which could lead to a paradigm shift in how depression is treated in men and women. Steve explains, "We've evolved over time at Arrivo and with our previous companies. What we're excited about right now is the fact that we have two drugs. One called SP-624 or Forvisirvat is the generic name, and the other one is code-named RABI-767. And as we've gotten into the science behind these drugs, what we're finding is that we're not just treating the symptoms of a disease, but we're really trying to get at what's causing the disease fundamentally and trying to make an impact there. And I think from a drug development standpoint - I've been doing this for 30 years - these are the two most exciting programs that I've had a chance to work on for a variety of reasons. One is the science, and they're both novel and new approaches to treating the diseases, but two, if we're right, they're going to create a situation where we're going to think about these diseases differently." "We ran a large Phase 2 study. It was the first study we had run in patients with depression, and it was really the first study that anyone had run with a SIRT6 activator in patients with depression. And so we were breaking new ground there, and it was a pretty large study. When we got the results, what we found was that there were really nice effects in females across all of the measures that we had and no evidence of efficacy in males. And that was really puzzling to us. It wasn't what we were expecting. And we started diving into, well, what could be going on here? Science is iterative, and I think you do a trial, and trials lead to more questions. And so we started diving into the questions that we had around “Why the sex difference?” #ArrivoBioVentures #MentalHealth #Neuroscience #WomensHealth #Depression #DepressionTreatment #Psychiatry #PrecisionMedicine arrivobio.com Download the transcript here

Daniel Blumenthal, VP of Strategy at MDClone, is building synthetic data models to mimic real patient data without the need to protect the identity of individuals. This type of data is being utilized in drug discovery and development, building predictive tools and new care models, and to better understand biases in clinical trials making them more representative. AI tools play an essential role in generating and validating synthetic data as well as integrating it into various processes and environments. Daniel explains, "Synthetic data means different things to different people. So I definitely would want to start with sharing what it usually means to MDClone, which is creating data based on real populations of patients, real patient data. Learning from that real patient data, extracting essentially the statistics from that data, understanding the relevant patterns that exist inside that data, and then, based on the statistics alone, generating a brand-new set of data, a brand-new set of people, and the synthetic data that we generate." "If you look at it, essentially with your naked eye, you wouldn't know it's not real people. It has the same structure, has the same content appearance, and yet, inside, synthetic data contains no real people. So very different from other approaches to protecting patient privacy, which take a patient data set and hash data, mask data, or remove information like IDs, names, or locations." "Instead of taking that sort of approach, synthetic data actually generates a brand-new set of people, fake people, that in our case, as we build it, maintain the same statistical properties, such that any analysis you want to complete, you could accomplish using the synthetic dataset just as you would with the original dataset. That it will yield the same meaningful conclusions as the synthetic that it would with the original." #MDClone #MedAI #AI #SyntheticData #DrugDevelopment #DrugDiscovery #ClinicalTrials #PatientPrivacy mdclone.com Download the transcript here

Rick Geoffrion, Founder and CEO of Cyrano Therapeutics, is developing a drug to restore olfactory function due to post-viral loss of smell and taste. As a result of COVID-19, there has been a significant increase in the number of people affected by long-term smell and taste loss, with no effective pharmaceutical options previously available. Smell loss can also be an early indicator of neurodegenerative conditions, suggesting future applications of the intranasal spray that aims to directly restore function to the olfactory receptor neurons. Rick explains, "Taste and smell have a really strong connection, actually. First of all, they're two out of the five basic senses that we have as human beings. When you lose your sense of smell, people actually perceive that they've lost about 80% of their sense of taste. Now, technically, you're not losing your sense of taste. We actually just give our tongue too much credit. Our tongue is able to detect sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. That's all it detects, and it detects them really in light monotone that are about 80% less intense if you've lost your sense of smell. In addition, if you no longer have your sense of smell, what you've really lost is the ability to detect flavor in food. So, to tell the difference between a peach, a pear, and a strawberry, maybe you'll tell that visually, but to tell it from a flavor perspective, you completely lose that ability. "There really are no significant therapies to treat the condition right now. Essentially, if you've lost your sense of smell, a physician may recommend that you use smell training, which is essentially the regular smelling of intense essential oils, and they really haven't been shown to significantly treat or cure a chronic smell loss condition. It is thought that if your body is spontaneously recovering, say within those first few months, if you do undergo smell training, you may accelerate that recovery. But other than that, there's certainly no gold standard treatment or no significant treatments available right now, and no pharmaceuticals in the pipeline other than CYR-064, which is being developed by Cyrano." #CyranoTherapeutics #Olfactory #LongCOVID #PostViralLoss #IntranasalSpray #SmellandTaste #LongTermSmellLoss cyranotherapeutics.com Download the transcript here

Loren Larsen, CEO and Co-Founder of Videra Health, is using AI-powered technology to improve the patient-provider connection and monitor patient health, particularly mental health, in an empathetic and conversational way. The video-based AI platform engages patients in regular check-ins to assess mental and physical conditions and detect subtle changes in behavior, tone, or language that could indicate issues like suicidal ideation or movement disorders. Data from patient encounters is also providing insights to clinicians and helping patients and providers better understand the connection between mental health and chronic conditions. Loren explains, "We started Videra Health recognizing this challenge that when a patient isn't with their doctor, they lose connection. You go to your doctor, you get good care, you leave. There's never been a good way to follow up or check in with patients to see how they're doing. And so we've really applied AI to this for the last six years since we started the company to check in with patients, finding out how they're doing in an empathetic, conversational, authentic way that replaces boring old assessments that require people to field lots and lots of multiple-choice questions, which no one enjoys. The whole goal here is how to build a better connection between the provider and their patient, even when the provider's too busy to check in on a regular basis." "Then, as they're answering, the AI is analyzing both their verbal and nonverbal responses to measure things that the clinician is interested in, such as their depression, their anxiety, PTSD, whether they are using suicidal language, etc. And then having this nice conversation. It usually takes a few minutes." "We think you often hear from doctors like, Oh, if I could just see my patients for a few minutes, I would know how they're doing. So there's this idea that we want to be able to see how a person is doing, not just verbally, but how they're presenting themselves, how they're communicating their facial expressions in addition to the words that they're using. So we're looking at their words, their tone of voice, and relevant facial expressions and movements that help us understand what's really happening." #VideraHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealthTech #DigitalHealth #AIinHealthcare #HealthTech #ClinicalTrials #RemotePatientMonitoring #HealthInnovation #PatientCenteredCare viderahealth.com Download the transcript here

David Fischel, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Stereotaxis, is advancing the ability of surgical robotics, particularly in the field of minimally invasive catheter-based procedures. Stereotaxis is developing the use of robotic technology to improve precision and accessibility in endovascular surgeries with a unique mechanism that allows surgeons to control the tip of the catheter. The adoption of surgical robotics for endovascular procedures will expand as remote access is made available and safety concerns are addressed for previously impossible-to-treat conditions. David explains, "We build advanced robots that allow physicians to do minimally invasive catheter-based procedures with greater precision and safety. We're kind of pioneering that area of robotic surgery. We've seen other areas of medicine benefit significantly over the last decade or two from advanced robotic technologies. And there's a whole field of catheter-based endovascular cardiovascular procedures where we're still using handheld catheters that have limitations and weaknesses to them. And by improving that field of medicine, we think we can make care better for patients, and we can enable minimally invasive, effective care for many more patients." "Robots are improving surgery in many areas in a fairly dramatic fashion. Endovascular surgery is where you use endo within vascular, within the blood vessels, you use the blood vessels as a type of superhighway and you insert these little devices called catheters into the blood vessels and then usually through the leg or the arm, and then you can go anywhere you want in the body to the brain or to the heart or to the periphery and treat the patient kind of using that catheter." "It's a strange area of medicine, particularly for trying to implement robots, because you're working in very small, delicate anatomy, and you have to think about flexible robots because the catheter has to navigate all the tortuosity of the patient's blood vessels. You can't think about a robot in the traditional way you would imagine a robot, if you think about industrial robots. And so that's where that area has been more difficult, and that's where we're really pioneering and bringing robotics to play in that field." #Stereotaxis #SturgicalRobots #RoboticAssistedSurgery #PrecisionMedicine #EndovascularSurgery #CardiacArrhythmias stereotaxis.com Download the transcript here

Craig Limoli, Co-Founder and CEO of Wellsheet, is streamling workflows for clinicians by providing better access to patient data and improving care coordination across care teams. Wellsheet is integrated into existing health records to provide a seamless experience to users and help to reduce "pajama time" for doctors by reducing the amount of end-of-the-day work needed to document patient encounters. Wellsheet uses AI and natural language processing to surface the most relevant information for clinicians and generate documentation, reducing time spent and improving efficiency. Craig explains, "Wellsheet is a care team, co-pilot that serves physicians as well as other clinicians with better access to all of the data they need to make treatment decisions for patients, as well as easier coordination across the whole care team. So we're really designed as a company and as a product to support a broad array of clinicians, both physicians, nursing case managers, and surface the data most relevant to them in the way that they want to see it. We coordinate care across those multidisciplinary stakeholders in a way that is seamlessly embedded and integrated into the existing electronic health record systems to ultimately create a really seamless and cohesive experience for our users." "So our technology is embedded within Epic, Cerner, and other major EHRs. So physicians and other clinicians access it with the click of a button directly within their workflow in the EHR. They don't have to log in again, they don't have to reidentify the patient. It all feels like a native part of their EHR experience. And as soon as they click into Wellsheet, they are presented with a summarized view of the most relevant information from the entire patient's medical history and what pertains to that particular encounter, all in a single place." #Wellsheet #ClinicalWorkflow #EHR #AI #ClinicalAI #MultidisciplinaryCare #PhysicianBurnout #DigitalHealth wellsheet.com Download the transcript here