Empowered Patient Podcast

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 generation of patients now that have been exposed to checkpoint therapy, and that are now many of whom resistant to checkpoint therapy. We call that acquired resistance. And so the game has really changed. It's an open question: whether the first PD-1 drugs would be approved today if all of those patients had been treated with some other checkpoint therapy prior to it raises the bar. This means new strategies are needed to treat patients with acquired resistance to immunotherapy." "One of the interesting things about VISTA is that it does play a key role in the tumor microenvironment. The tumor microenvironment is unique because it's an environment inside the body in which cells proliferate very rapidly. That leads to a whole host of subsequent changes that affect the outcome of therapy, the fact that when cells are dividing rapidly, the pH in the area tends to drop, and it becomes more acidic. And that's directly related to the function of VISTA. It's one of the things that makes VISTA unique because VISTA is only activated as an immune checkpoint under lower pH conditions." #SenseiBio #ImmunOncology #PatientSelection #Immunotherapy #Cancer #Tumors #ImmuneCheckpointTargets #VISTA SenseiBio.com Download the transcript here

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 away from. So it's about the need to try and discover all of the different aspects of what might be acting as a barrier in making sure that new medicines are adopted as quickly as possible." "When it comes to behavioral change, I don’t think people realize quite what a science it is. You know, it's firmly rooted in psychology and sociology. There is clear evidence supporting its use. We use the COM-B model, a well-reputed approach to defining barriers. This is interesting because pharmaceuticals, in particular, and patient communications are all heavily dependent on the data and evidence, yet the way they communicate is usually governed by habit. We're trying to encourage people to look at what's needed to shift behaviors instead of just relying on habitual communication." "There is a wealth of examples where behavior science is being used very successfully in consumer advertising and in the kinds of scenarios you mentioned. There's a lot of work in that area, but even there, real behavioral science is still on the fringes. It's not routinely adopted. So what we need to do is make sure that it is better understood. In pharmaceuticals, it isn't as adopted anywhere near as much as it should be or could be, especially given what's at stake." #Alpharmaxim #BehavioralScience #PharmaMarketing #Medtech alpharmaxim.com Download the transcript here

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 fun as possible for both the clinician and the patient." "We want things to be simple for patients, and we know that most people who have a cardiometabolic condition are likely to have more than one. Sometimes, two or three. So, our goal is to make the experience as simple and streamlined as possible for the members. So if they're coming to us with a glucose issue and need labs and medication for that, but they also need coaching on their diet for heart health and cholesterol, we want to offer them all that in one experience." #9amHealth #Diversity #Healthcare #HealthEquity #AsynchronousCare #CardiometabolicCare #MetabolicHealth #MedicationCosts2024 #EmployeeBenefits #DigitalHealth join9am.com Download the transcript here

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 enabled us to do was to do outpatient imaging studies very quickly, less expensively, and very accurately." "A whole-body MRI involves a series of MRI sequences, more than one, looking at the body. Typically, we look at the head, neck, chest, abdomen, and pelvis. We do specialized sequences within those areas looking for aneurysms, looking for vascular changes in the body, looking at the health of the brain for not only excluding particularly cancers in the brain, for example, but also looking for early signs of Alzheimer's disease. In the neck, we look for cancers as well as other abnormalities." "In the chest, abdomen, and pelvis, we not only look for vascular abnormalities but also for early signs of cancer and other abnormalities, including metabolic abnormalities within the liver. There is something called fatty liver disease, which is common in the US. So, the process involves a noninvasive MRI study with multiple different sequences looking at different areas within the body, and we put them all together in one visit." #SimonMedImaging #MRI #WholeBodyScan #Diagnostics #AI #MedicalImaging #PreventativeMedicine SimonMed.com Download the transcript here

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 benefits to the majority of the patients, and I should be more distinct to say a benefit to some extent." "In order to maximize the success with our therapy, we figured out that we need to target more than just one single mechanism and we need to tackle as much as we can or as many as we can. And looking at the more pertinent targets in our view and our understanding, we combine two molecules that target several mechanisms in a synergistic manner. We found molecules that can target these pathological pathways that were identified from the start. Also, it was important for us to see that they can work synergistically together on these targets." #NeuroSense #ALS #Parkinsons #Alzheimers #NeurodegenerativeDiseases NeuroSense-TX.com Download the transcript here

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 that it's all about the person in front of them. There are a number of other programs that we do with medical schools, and we're attached to over 90% of the medical schools across the country. We work directly with these schools to help keep healthcare human." "There is an abundance of research out there that will show you when a patient feels well cared for, they're healthier. When the interaction goes well, the healthcare professional is healthier. Those two things alone lead to lower healthcare costs, less no-show rates, less health professional turnover. So it is in some ways the epitome of value-based care, if we really value people, it's going to save money. It's going to make the society healthier." #GoldFoundation #Humanism #Healthcare #PatientCentered #EmpowerTeams #ThankAResidentDay gold-foundation.org Download the transcript here

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 neurotype the patient based on brain function." "By examining the functioning of the cornea or systems from attention to memory and negative bias and reward function, we aim to reduce the heterogeneity of treatment groups using the brain function biomarkers because depression has a lot of phenotypes. There is no single depression, but we call it depressions because there are tons of variations of combination of the symptoms to meet the criteria of depression. So by neurotyping patients based on brain function, we reduce the heterogeneity of depressions and lead to better outcomes." #UniversalBrain #Neurotyping #BrainBiomarkers #Depression #PrecisionPsychiatry universal-brain.com Download the transcript here

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 their superior analgesic efficacy, especially when compared to currently marketed non-opioid alternatives and those in development. We're excited to say that we've demonstrated human proof of concept in a recent study that we announced. But what I'd like to do is have Tom step in. Again, he is the inventor of our technology. He's a PhD synthetic organic chemist out of Stanford. Tom, do you want to talk about the technology and maybe compare it to past attempts at abuse-deterrent formulation?" Tom elaborates, "How we answer the question and how our technology works is fairly straightforward. What we've done is we've taken the opioid molecule with hydrocodone, and we can use any opioid molecule, morphine, oxycodone, or any of the prescription opioids. What we do is make a molecular modification to the drug. The key part of that is the conditional bioavailability of the drug is the fact that the drug has to see digestive enzyme, specifically trypsin, in the small intestine before it can be converted to an active drug." #ElysiumTherapeutics #Opioids #OpioidAbuse #SyntheticOpioids #OpioidUseDisorder #PainManagement #SaferMedicines ElysiumRX.com Download the transcript here

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 that they have, whether it's their blood sugar control for diabetes or their blood pressure if they have hypertension?" "On the social outcomes that are drivers of people's health issues. So, are we getting you housed? Are we getting you a reliable and stable source of nutritious food? Because these are the things that make a difference in the health outcomes we're looking for." "And then, of course, value-based care also implies attention to the cost of care. Are we delivering those outcomes at a cost that makes sense? And we've shown that we're very good at being able to achieve both of those things at the same time. At Pair Team, we have great outcomes in terms of hemoglobin A1C and blood pressure and improvements in depression. At the same time, we're offering people services that allow them to go to the emergency department and be in the hospital last. And so the real sweet spot in value-based care is if you can improve the outcomes for the folks who need it and return those investments to the system in the shape of lower spending." #PairTeam #SDOH #HealthcareAccess #EnhancedCareManagement #DigitalHealth pairteam.com Download the transcript here

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, inflammation cannot fix these issues and, therefore, decides to take out a damaged part of the body. The death of the motor neuron then spurs more inflammation, and the inflammation that rises in the body eventually damages what are called regulatory T cells, the most immunomodulating cells in the body. Once regulatory T cells are damaged, inflammation becomes a persistent condition and drives further degeneration and eventually death." "Coya is founded upon the idea that we can affect the number and efficacy of regulatory T cells. This was our first pathway to affecting change in ALS. We have now gone to a combination therapy, which will be a biologic made up of two FDA-approved drugs in our own formulation. We believe this combination can increase the efficacy and number of regulatory T cells and reduce inflammation. We believe this combination effect in such a heterogeneous disease will have more efficacy than just a single modality." $COYA #CoyaTherapeutics #ALS #GeneticALS #PresymptomaticALS #PatientAdvocacy #RareDiseases coyatherapeutics.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Bala Hota, Senior VP and Chief Informatics Officer at Tendo, emphasizes the importance of leveraging data to improve patient care and operational performance in healthcare and overcome biases in access. Focusing on quality measures and integration of structured and unstructured data, Tendo has developed services that support providers, patients, and caregivers using multiple avenues of communication. The acquisition of MDsave allows for a marketplace that provides transparent pricing for medical services, adding to this omnichannel healthcare model. Bala explains, "At Tendo, our vision is to be the trusted connection between patients, providers, and caregivers, using an intuitive and seamless interface to provide that optimum experience. The way we approach things is we have a number of different ways that people interact with our application and our software. We have a patient care journey application, which helps patients navigate through complex care pathways." "We have an insights offering that uses a variety of engines to look at electronic record data and claims data to identify cohorts where there could be opportunities to provide better care, provide better documentation, and take action. Then, we have an outreach product where we can take those insights and drive them through to actions through to the patient, including self-scheduling. So this is all on a common software platform, which allows us to deploy faster and have configurability, but we're focusing on those three main areas." "The way we come at it is from the quality perspective. If you're doing the right thing and trying to optimize the accuracy of capturing that information, the revenue will follow. One of our use cases is around hospital rankings and how you improve risk adjustment to make sure that you're getting credit for the quality you're providing and that your documentation is fully accurate. We find revenue increases as a result of that effort." #Tendo #Healthcare #SoftwareSolutions #PatientExperiences tendo.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Philip Chenette, a fertility doctor with over 20 years of experience, talks with Deepak Puri, CEO of Democracy Labs, about misunderstandings about reproductive health and the political ramifications. They discuss the role of doctors in educating patients and politicians about fertility treatments and the importance of the patient's voice and vote to protect reproductive rights. Deepak sets the stage, "Patients often don't connect the dots. So, having a doctor explain, these are the complications, this is what's happening, this is why I cannot treat IVF for you because regulations and politicians are interfering with the process. As a physician, there's only so much I can do. But if you, as an individual, as a mother, and as a father, want to bring about change, you have to get involved and vote. So, that's where the connection happens. And Dr. Chenette articulates this really well." Philip explains, "In the early days, it was just people who were trying, and trying, and trying at home and just couldn't get it done, couldn't accomplish the goal of conceiving a pregnancy. I was impressed by the drive that they showed. These were new techniques. Our office was brand new at the time. The ideas of using fertility techniques, of using fertility medications, and laboratory techniques to manage human embryos were all brand new at the time. But people were so driven, patients were so driven to accomplish this goal of building a family that they were willing to engage in those new techniques, and try new ideas, and push, and push, and push until they could get it done." "As you get older, it gets harder and harder to find that good embryo. Just to illustrate that, in our data, at age 25, 1 in three of your embryos is a healthy one, a third. At age 40, that number is one in 10. At age 44, that number is one in 100. 1% of the embryos you can produce have the chromosomes it takes to produce a baby at age 44. That problem is really what we dealt with and what created the fertility world we know today, in vitro fertilization, and the busy practices that we have taking care of patients." #DrPhilipChenette @TheDemLabs #FertilityTreatments #ReproductiveRights #IVF #WomensHealth #ReproductiveHealth #WomensRights TheDemLabs.org Download the transcript here

Amanda Bury, Chief Commercial Officer at Infermedica, emphasizes the need for better care navigation tools to help educate patients about care options and appropriate providers to address their concerns. AI-powered care navigation also supports clinicians by identifying patients who need in-clinic attention, those who can be helped through a telehealth visit, or those who can be given instructions about self-care at home. Amanda addresses the need for education and trust when bringing AI to healthcare and the positive impact these technologies can have on alleviating the shortage of healthcare workers. Amanda explains, "Taking it a step further is this new wave of care navigation tools, which takes that search match a step further. It leverages more of a question-and-answer capability to help route, manage, and navigate patients to the best care choice, whether inside a hospital via a telemedicine appointment or maybe they can even self-care at home. So, care navigation tools have evolved quite a bit, and we're now at this beginning stage of AI-powered care navigation tools, making the industry that much more exciting." "At Infermedica, we have an AI-powered tool either for health plans or health systems to take clinically validated navigation and help guide those patients and members towards the most appropriate and cost-effective care. So I always like to say, "When you were younger, did you ever do those choose your own adventures where you would go through and pick and choose what your next step was?" And that is really what these AI-powered care navigation tools are doing: they're taking and learning along the way based on the symptoms and how the patient is feeling and helping direct them to the right level of care." #Infermedica #HealthcareAI #AI #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalHealth Infermedica.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Ahzam Afzal, Co-Founder and CEO of Puzzle Healthcare, aims to reduce readmission rates to hospitals and skilled nursing facilities by focusing on discharge planning and post-acute care. High readmission rates can result in financial penalties and are often caused by the complexity of the patient's condition and social determinants of health. Puzzle is working with health systems and SNFs to implement a readmission prevention program that includes physiatry and care coordination 90 days after discharge. Ahzam explains, "Hospital readmissions have become a focal point for our healthcare systems for several reasons. First and foremost, they are a key indicator of the quality of care being provided by these facilities. High readmission rates often suggest that patients may not be receiving the comprehensive care they need during their hospital stay or the necessary support post-discharge. This could be due to inadequate discharge planning, insufficient patient education on their conditions, or a lack of effective follow-up care." "Additionally, readmissions place a substantial financial burden on healthcare facilities. Under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals with higher than expected readmission rates for certain conditions face significant penalties including reduced Medicare reimbursements. This policy was also extended to skilled nursing facilities through the Skilled Nursing Facility Value-Based Purchasing program, which penalizes SNF facilities based on their readmission rates starting in 2024." #PuzzleHealthcare #ReadmissionPrevention #Hospitals #SkilledNursingFacilities #ValueBasedCare #PostAcuteCare #SDOH puzzlehealthcare.com Download the transcript here

JJ Mosolf, Founder and President of Academy Medtech Ventures, develops digital health solutions for use in clinical environments and at home to drive more effective rehabilitation. Addressing the brain and body by combining cognitive training with physical rehabilitation demonstrates better health outcomes and pain management. Their operating system, Cog PT, includes user-friendly tools for in-clinic assessment, AI human motion capture, and training, with a companion app for patients. JJ explains, "We see the body and the brain as intricately connected. A lot of the literature over the past decade or so points to the brain as a vehicle for the upside, as the driving force behind what goes on from a neuromuscular standpoint. We see this less as, "Let's introduce cognition and neurocognitive training to uncover some deficiency or impairment," and more as a vehicle for training upside purposes. This connection point is typically where people struggle." "The operating system term references every component within a clinical care instance. We recognize that it isn't just the delivery of a modality that a clinician cares about but the time that it takes to document said intervention and the ability to introduce connectivity to the home environment. We've tried to build a suite of tools to touch on each of those elements and provide the most easy-to-use and valuable service for clinicians, not just at the point of care." "A tangible example would be the in-clinic modality side of what can be delivered as a software implementation on an iPad. It can be set up whether it's on a stand or in a patient's hands, and it fits within the workflow space. Then we've got some patient education tools and data tools to help on the workflow side, and the home remote monitoring side also rounds out the operating system. That's a core tenet of how we think about technological interventions in the rehab space." #CognitiveTraining #AI #ComputerVision #Rehabilitation #PhysicalTherapy #Clinicians #DigitalHealth academymedtechventures.com Download the transcript here

Adam Kautzner, President of Express Scripts, highlights the role pharmacy benefit management companies play in negotiating prices with drug companies and pharmacies. They also perform health safety checks to ensure patients get the correct medications and updates, and those with multi-morbidities are checked for possible drug interactions. Overcoming the supply chain challenges during the pandemic, Express Scripts continues to develop more effective solutions to lower the cost of drugs and improve access. Adam explains, "Unfortunately, prescription drugs are becoming even more expensive. So our role in that space is to work for employers, or potentially for health plans, that hire us to help improve, for patients, medication affordability, to improve patient outcomes, and ensure that for patients there is predictability at the pharmacy counter to navigate their pharmacy benefit." "We're able to do that because, as the most utilized benefit, we have a bird's eye view of all the different patients' needs that they may have. We're able to look over, if you're going to multiple doctors, getting prescribed multiple drugs from multiple doctors. We can actually perform safety checks across all of that to ensure that when you're refilling a prescription or getting a new prescription everything is safe, and there aren't going to be drug interactions. We're able to ensure that you have predictability and affordability for your pharmacy benefits." "So yes, comorbidities continue to become a broader and broader issue. I would say there are also more drugs now to treat many of those comorbidities, and some products can even treat multiple types of conditions where they've been approved for things like cardiovascular and diabetes. Those drugs that treat multiple conditions can also be helpful as well because you can actually eliminate some drugs and minimize the number of different products that you have to take." #ExpressScripts #Evernorth #PharmacyBenefitManagement #PBM #DrugCosts evernorth.com ExpressScripts.com The facts about home delivery Download the transcript here

Wayne Picker, Head of Operations at Prenuvo, discusses the use of whole-body MRI as an early detection tool to change the paradigm of healthcare from reactive to proactive. Using an optimized MRI machine, these 3D scans allow clinicians and patients to identify early signs of disease and gain insights into actionable information that can influence lifestyle changes and future testing. Prenuvo is focused on reducing the cost of whole-body MRI scans and making them affordable and accessible to reduce late-stage diagnoses dramatically. Wayne explains, "MRI is still quite a young tool. It's only been around for the last 40 years. Traditionally, MRI has always been a slow scan technique. And so, because of that, it's usually the last test people are ever getting done. Usually, imaging starts with an X-ray. If they can't find the solution from that, they'll often go for a CT scan or an ultrasound, and usually, MRIs are the last test that people get sent for." "This is a real shame because MRI is the most sensitive and specific scan for lots of different health conditions. So, part of forming Prenuvo was looking to change that paradigm. We were looking to use MRI as the first test. And if we image the body sooner before somebody has symptoms, then health outcomes have to be better. The direction has been using MRI, a safe imaging test to scan head to toe, looking for as many different health conditions as possible." "One was to screen for the most conditions possible. The next one was to do it in a time-savvy way, doing the scan in less than an hour. Then the third one was to make it as reproducible as possible. We could compare the scan from one year to the next so we could come in and follow the progression or the consistency of their health conditions year-on-year, as well as with our different clinics, making sure that those scans are reproducible." #Prenuvo #ProactiveHealthcare #WholeBodyMRI #Healthtech Prenuvo.com Download the transcript here

Cynthia Pussinen, CEO of Sernova, describes their innovative cell therapy platform, the Cell Pouch System, which can deliver functional cures for chronic diseases using therapeutic cells, tissues, proteins, and other molecules. This implantable device is made of mesh that allows for vascularization, forming a pseudo-organ that can function in the body and fulfill unmet needs. The current focus is on type one diabetes, where the Cell Pouch has shown promising results, allowing patients to become insulin-independent. Other potential applications include treating hypothyroidism and hemophilia A. Cynthia explains, "The Cell Pouch is a very flexible implantable device. It's made of two polypropylene mesh sheets, and in those mesh sheets, it has perfectly sized pores. So, the Cell Pouch is a couple of millimeters thick and about the size of a credit card." "We take the Cell Pouch and, place it in the abdominal region of the patient and let it sit for a couple of weeks. And that is to allow vascularization. So vessels and tissues grow through those pores I mentioned a moment ago of the Cell Pouch. It creates a very healthy environment for us to put those therapeutic cells or tissues or blood factors, hormones, or proteins into that Cell Pouch a couple of weeks later after that full vascularization has happened. If we put the cells in without the vascularization happening first, the cells would die." "After we place those therapeutic cells into the Cell Pouch, the cells in the Cell Pouch essentially form a pseudo-organ of sorts. They begin to function, fulfilling what the body was not capable of previously performing. And so in the case of our type one diabetes study, what happens is, after the Cell Pouch and cells are implanted into the patient's body, we then begin to titrate them off of insulin over the course of a couple of weeks. Then the body with the Cell Pouch and cells goes on to essentially form that pseudo-organ of sorts. We have patients now who have been insulin-independent for a number of years." #Sernova #FunctionalCure #TypeOneDiabetes #CellTherapy #ChronicDiseases #PrecisionMedicine #Medtech Sernova.com Download the transcript here

Dr. Ben Barlow, Chief Medical Officer of Experity, has identified opportunities to leverage the power of technology in the complex urgent care environment, which requires a wide range of services. To overcome the challenges of long wait times and staffing shortages, Experity is streamlining workflows and making urgent care more efficient and patient-centered. Online scheduling, pre-visit information gathering, and access to existing electronic health records aid clinicians in treatment decisions and post-visit follow-up, resulting in improved delivery of on-demand healthcare services. Ben explains, "We do a lot of different things. I don't think people know what we do in urgent care. We started being an alternative for patients to the emergency department, but now we've evolved into being patient-centered to where the doctor waits on the patient. And so, that's what we do in urgent care. We take care of a lot of different needs of the patients, really dictated on what the patients want us to help them with." "I think that urgent care's strength is that we continue to think about the challenges the patients are experiencing and try to adapt to those challenges. An example is recently, when COVID hit, no one wanted to wait in lobbies. They didn't want to interact with other sick people. So urgent care ramped up its online scheduling, allowing patients to get on a waitlist online and then get texted when it was their time to come in. And so it's those kinds of things that, as challenges arise, the urgent care community is looking to address. Our major challenge right now is looking at the payer system, challenges with reimbursement, labor shortages, and things like that." "We want to think of the patient as not just the interaction that occurs inside the clinic but also before and after because the medical community and the healthcare environment are very complicated to navigate. We feel like urgent care is the front door into the system, so we're continuing to make products and services that help our clients help patients navigate the complexities of the healthcare environment." #Experity #UrgentCare #PatientExperience #Healthcare experityhealth.com Download the transcript here

Meg Boehme, living with multiple sclerosis and a friend, discusses her reaction to receiving the diagnosis of MS, which she had suspected for many years due to little-understood symptoms. Meg highlights the importance of doctors being aware of the early indications of MS and helping patients see this as a chronic condition that can, in part, be treated with lifestyle changes and staying active. She also emphasizes the need for more affordable access to the latest treatments. Meg explains, "Oh, yes. It is a chronic condition. What annoys me is that in the media, it's often treated as a fatal condition. And for most of us, for those who don't have the progressive form, it fortunately is not. It doesn't have to be. The diagnosis is not necessarily the end of the world." "There are good treatments coming down the road. The key to it is keeping yourself active and keeping your own body as healthy as you can. Eating well, staying active, keeping your weight manageable, keeping your diet manageable. Don't do stupid things. That being responsible for your own body, being responsible for your own life. When you get a diagnosis of anything like this, you need to take a look and know that you need to take care of yourself." "It's a lifesaver, quite literally. I'll go into the chorus in pain, and the pain disappears. Singing is, in all ways, the lifeblood of me. And yes, the singing, the breathing, the posture, the fact that I stand on the risers for three hours a week, that it keeps my brain active, that I have to learn the music. We sing completely acapella. We have about three weeks to learn a piece of music and then sing without looking at the music. And that my director has MS and is not sympathetic towards me. If I'm dizzy or have a problem, I can sit, but I mostly don't. I gut it out. But if I come in pain, most of the time, I don't leave in pain. It's just the thing that keeps me going, and I think the big thing is that it keeps my brain active." #MS #MultipleSclerosis #ChronicDiseases Download the transcript here