Empowered Patient Podcast

Ben Casavant, Co-Founder and CEO of Tasso, focuses on making diagnostics more accessible to patients that allow collection of blood samples at home. Their customers include pharmaceutical companies conducting research and healthcare providers. Using Tasso's technology in decentralized clinical trials allows for easier recruitment, increased patient participation, and more data collection. The simplicity and ease of use of Tasso's blood collection device have resulted in positive patient responses and improved retention rates in clinical trials. They offer liquid and dried blood collection options to accommodate different lab processes and sample types.   Ben explains, "When we think about the customer bases we're serving, we're working with many different pharmaceutical companies conducting critical and life-changing research. We just announced a partnership with the Parkinson's Foundation so they can help find ways to gather information and data about patients living with Parkinson's disease. But they need

Chris Darland, President and CEO of Peerbridge Health, discusses technology breakthroughs that enable early, low-cost detection of heart issues with a cardiac monitor that uses AI to analyze heart rhythms over time to detect patterns that may indicate heart failure. The device is based on ECG technology that drives the Holter monitor and delivers a full 12-lead ECG with a volumetric 3D view of the heart. The goal is to reach more patients who may not proactively seek medical attention and provide early intervention and treatment.  Chris explains, " I think the problem with the current state is largely that it's too late. And I say that to mean that 80% of all heart failure cases today are getting caught after an emergency room visit. So, it's not necessarily that we don't have the tools to find heart failure and the cardiologists and expertise to identify it, but we're not getting it in time. So if you are one of those patients who, let's say, are caught earlier or maybe unfortunately when you come through

Dr. David Stein, CEO and Director of Babson Diagnostics, a healthcare technology company that focuses on putting the patient at the center of the blood testing experience, recognizing the importance of blood testing in informing clinical decisions and monitoring health. They aim to redefine blood testing by eliminating the anxiety and inconvenience associated with traditional blood testing methods by offering a more accessible and convenient approach. Blood samples are collected with an innovative device from the patient's fingertip at retail pharmacy locations, and patients use a digital app and QR code system to order and track tests and receive test results. David explains, "Babson Diagnostics is a science-first healthcare technology company that has reimagined the end-to-end blood testing experience. In that experience, the patient and customer are the strong focus. We've all experienced times when we've had a blood test ordered for us, and we’ve felt anxious. We've tried, as much as we can, to eliminate

Joan Butters, CEO and Co-Founder of Xsolis works with health systems and health plans to automate medical necessity decisions and improve efficiency. Using data and AI, Xsolis helps clinicians make more informed decisions and reduces manual administrative work, resulting in time and cost savings and improved patient care. Addressing the challenges and pushback faced when introducing AI into healthcare, Joan emphasizes the importance of understanding the limitations and complexities of generative AI and the need for subject matter expertise in developing prompts to properly address friction points between providers and payers in the healthcare environment. Joan explains, "More important to this audience are the administrative aspects and the impact of that back and forth on the cost of healthcare. We were very fortunate that we found a niche in what we were trying to solve for. Again, that was the medical necessity decision whether a patient required hospital-based care. And then, with that laser focus, we d

Sanjeev Redkar, Co-Founder, Executive Director, and President of Apollomics, focuses on difficult-to-treat cancers, such as lung cancer, brain cancer, and leukemias, not served by immune checkpoint inhibitors. Their approach targets the thematic pathway in cancer cells responsible for their growth and proliferation. In their drug development, AI and data analysis drive precision-targeted therapies based on tumor molecular profiling. They are developing the drugs Vebreltinib and Uproleselan, which can be used as standalone treatments or in combination with other therapies to treat rare cancers. Sanjeev explains, "There's a pathway that is very important for the growth of cancer cells. This is proliferation, motility, migration, and invasion of cancer cells, and that's the thematic pathway. This is an important receptor, which is upstream in cell signaling of these cancer cells. This is when these pathways work well, these cells grow as normal homeostasis, normal growth of cells. When this pathway is disrupted

Kristen Helton, CEO and Co-Founder of Herself Health, provides comprehensive primary care designed specifically for women over 65, considering the unique health challenges these women face. The emphasis is on the importance of addressing women's health beyond reproductive health and the need for tailored treatment and screening for conditions that affect women differently than men. Kristen notes the underrepresentation of women, especially older women, in clinical trials and the need for further investigation. They aim to reduce bias and improve the quality of care for older women by adopting a person-centric approach, listening to patients' concerns, and building trust. Kristen explains, "Almost half of the burdens of disease that women experience stem from conditions that affect women differently than men. So, a lot of these diseases, cardiovascular, chronic illness, gastroenterology, and depression, affect men differently than they affect women. We're very focused on how we treat women and screen them for

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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