Empowered Patient Podcast

David Mazzo, President and CEO of Lisata Therapeutics, has a lead program focused on metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The Lisata CendR Platform and drug certepetide efficiently augment the effects of chemotherapy and immunotherapies in the tumor microenvironment. Based on early findings, the future of cancer treatment may involve combining existing therapies with certepetide to personalize treatment for most solid tumors.

David explains, "At Lisata, we're developing therapies to combat a challenging problem in the medical field today, which is the effective treatment of solid tumors. Solid tumors are very difficult to treat for two very simple reasons. On the one hand, these tumors generate a layer of cells around them that acts as a physical barrier. It's called the tumor stroma, and it prevents the penetration of many anti-cancer medicines into the tumor, which is why you often don't get the kind of results that one would expect."

"The other obstacle these tumors present is that they generate or express a tumor microenvironment that is immunosuppressive, which helps the tumor hide from your innate immune system. It helps it not respond very well to externally administered immunotherapies. When you combine these two challenges, you end up with a set of diseases that remains an enigma in medical science today."

"So our therapy at Lisata called certepetide, our lead product, actually combines the ability to target and penetrate tumors more effectively for co-administered anti-cancer drugs with the ability to modify the tumor microenvironment, making it more immunoreceptive and therefore more likely to respond to your immune system and immunotherapies."

#Lisata #Oncology #Cancer #SolidTumors #Immunotherapies #TumorMicroEnvironment

lisata.com

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David Mazzo, President and CEO of Lisata Therapeutics, has a lead program focused on metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The Lisata CendR Platform and drug certepetide efficiently augment the effects of chemotherapy and immunotherapies in the tumor microenvironment. Based on early findings, the future of cancer treatment may involve combining existing therapies with certepetide to personalize treatment for most solid tumors.

David explains, "At Lisata, we're developing therapies to combat a challenging problem in the medical field today, which is the effective treatment of solid tumors. Solid tumors are very difficult to treat for two very simple reasons. On the one hand, these tumors generate a layer of cells around them that acts as a physical barrier. It's called the tumor stroma, and it prevents the penetration of many anti-cancer medicines into the tumor, which is why you often don't get the kind of results that one would expect."

"The other obstacle these tumors present is that they generate or express a tumor microenvironment that is immunosuppressive, which helps the tumor hide from your innate immune system. It helps it not respond very well to externally administered immunotherapies. When you combine these two challenges, you end up with a set of diseases that remains an enigma in medical science today."

"So our therapy at Lisata called certepetide, our lead product, actually combines the ability to target and penetrate tumors more effectively for co-administered anti-cancer drugs with the ability to modify the tumor microenvironment, making it more immunoreceptive and therefore more likely to respond to your immune system and immunotherapies."

#Lisata #Oncology #Cancer #SolidTumors #Immunotherapies #TumorMicroEnvironment

lisata.com

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John Incledon, President and CEO of Hisamitsu America, the makers of Salonpas, has seen enormous growth in the acceptance of over-the-counter topical pain management options since introducing the Salonpas analgesic patch in the US market 37 years ago. This growth is partly due to television ads featuring doctors touting the benefits of Salonpas for mild to moderate nerve-related and muscle-related pain and the sampling program that aims to get doctors and patients to try out the products.

John explains, "Topical medications have only been around since the 1960s, with the introduction of the first OTC monograph by the FDA. Salonpas itself was formally introduced to the United States in 1987, so we've been around some 37 years or so as a brand in this country. And so, it's been a challenge. I'll give you a couple of fun facts: 85% of US households have a pill form of an OTC pain reliever in their house, and 30% have a topical analgesic of any sort, a cream, a roll-on, or a patch. So, there's a great disparity there. Pills remain a modality, topicals are up and coming, and I think the horizon for them is excellent."

"Topicals work locally, at least OTC topical analgesics. You can wear patches and things intended to be systemic, but in this category and the products we're talking about, they're not. They're intended basically just to work below the surface of the skin. There are pain receptors that certain actives will trigger to help minimize the pain. However, they're not intended to get into the bloodstream, so by working locally and acting locally, they're generally safer than systemic analgesics."

"We have basically two mechanisms of action in our products. One is anesthetic-based and uses lidocaine, and lidocaine is going to be most appropriate to the extent that you can diagnose this if your source of pain is from aggravated nerves. So if your lower back pain is tending to move outward, say, from the spine, you want to use an anesthetic to treat that, and so, a lidocaine-based product would be best."

"If it's purely muscle-related, then you're better off with our alternative formulas, which include menthol, methyl salicylate, and camphor. Methyl salicylate is an aspirin derivative, so it's categorized as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory but topically applied, as opposed to systemically."

#Salonpas #Hisamitsu #GoodMedicine #ItsGoodMedicine #PainManagement #OTC #OvertheCounterDrugs #TopicalAnalgesics

us.hisamitsu

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John Incledon, President and CEO of Hisamitsu America, the makers of Salonpas, has seen enormous growth in the acceptance of over-the-counter topical pain management options since introducing the Salonpas analgesic patch in the US market 37 years ago. This growth is partly due to television ads featuring doctors touting the benefits of Salonpas for mild to moderate nerve-related and muscle-related pain and the sampling program that aims to get doctors and patients to try out the products.

John explains, "Topical medications have only been around since the 1960s, with the introduction of the first OTC monograph by the FDA. Salonpas itself was formally introduced to the United States in 1987, so we've been around some 37 years or so as a brand in this country. And so, it's been a challenge. I'll give you a couple of fun facts: 85% of US households have a pill form of an OTC pain reliever in their house, and 30% have a topical analgesic of any sort, a cream, a roll-on, or a patch. So, there's a great disparity there. Pills remain a modality, topicals are up and coming, and I think the horizon for them is excellent."

"Topicals work locally, at least OTC topical analgesics. You can wear patches and things intended to be systemic, but in this category and the products we're talking about, they're not. They're intended basically just to work below the surface of the skin. There are pain receptors that certain actives will trigger to help minimize the pain. However, they're not intended to get into the bloodstream, so by working locally and acting locally, they're generally safer than systemic analgesics."

"We have basically two mechanisms of action in our products. One is anesthetic-based and uses lidocaine, and lidocaine is going to be most appropriate to the extent that you can diagnose this if your source of pain is from aggravated nerves. So if your lower back pain is tending to move outward, say, from the spine, you want to use an anesthetic to treat that, and so, a lidocaine-based product would be best."

"If it's purely muscle-related, then you're better off with our alternative formulas, which include menthol, methyl salicylate, and camphor. Methyl salicylate is an aspirin derivative, so it's categorized as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory but topically applied, as opposed to systemically."

#Salonpas #Hisamitsu #GoodMedicine #ItsGoodMedicine #PainManagement #OTC #OvertheCounterDrugs #TopicalAnalgesics

us.hisamitsu

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Dr. Doug Newton is the Chief Medical Officer at Rula Health, a tech-enabled provider group that offers therapy, psychiatry, care coordination, and other supportive behavioral health services with a whole-person approach. Mental health disorders are diagnosed and managed using a combination of sound clinical judgment and measurement-informed care, which involves using patient-reported data and other objective measures. Normalizing mental health and using objective measures can help doctors bring up the topic with people of all ages to develop a personalized plan to maintain good physical and psychological health.

Doug explains, "We do know that the behavioral health crisis was exacerbated by COVID. Still, unfortunately, for most demographic groupings, it was already starting before the pandemic hit. Using adolescents as an example, because I'm a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist by training, I saw this trend, so I looked at the data. We saw that was already a problem for kids, adolescents, and adults, where the rates of depression and anxiety were going up, as well as despair, as well as suicidal ideation - and, unfortunately, completion - were going up prior to COVID. It went up even further with COVID. We're seeing, unfortunately, either continued or slightly increased in the years post-COVID as well."

"The next component is, okay, great, let's get people to equitable and quick quality care. That's been harder. And so I do think that telehealth has allowed us to do that. I think it's allowed more equitable care across rural and urban areas. It's allowed providers and patients to find one another in a way we haven't been able to before. And that's great. I think the next frontier is making sure that we are providing the right care, and we can measure ways of providing the right care to that person. Highly personalized outcomes-based care is the frontier that we're going into next, and that's going to be critical."

#RulaHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealth #YouthMentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #MeasurementInformedCare #COVID

Rula.com

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Dr. Doug Newton is the Chief Medical Officer at Rula Health, a tech-enabled provider group that offers therapy, psychiatry, care coordination, and other supportive behavioral health services with a whole-person approach. Mental health disorders are diagnosed and managed using a combination of sound clinical judgment and measurement-informed care, which involves using patient-reported data and other objective measures. Normalizing mental health and using objective measures can help doctors bring up the topic with people of all ages to develop a personalized plan to maintain good physical and psychological health.

Doug explains, "We do know that the behavioral health crisis was exacerbated by COVID. Still, unfortunately, for most demographic groupings, it was already starting before the pandemic hit. Using adolescents as an example, because I'm a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist by training, I saw this trend, so I looked at the data. We saw that was already a problem for kids, adolescents, and adults, where the rates of depression and anxiety were going up, as well as despair, as well as suicidal ideation - and, unfortunately, completion - were going up prior to COVID. It went up even further with COVID. We're seeing, unfortunately, either continued or slightly increased in the years post-COVID as well."

"The next component is, okay, great, let's get people to equitable and quick quality care. That's been harder. And so I do think that telehealth has allowed us to do that. I think it's allowed more equitable care across rural and urban areas. It's allowed providers and patients to find one another in a way we haven't been able to before. And that's great. I think the next frontier is making sure that we are providing the right care, and we can measure ways of providing the right care to that person. Highly personalized outcomes-based care is the frontier that we're going into next, and that's going to be critical."

#RulaHealth #BehavioralHealth #MentalHealth #YouthMentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #MeasurementInformedCare #COVID

Rula.com

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Professor Sir Peter Donnelly, Founder and CEO of Genomics plc, aims to use cutting-edge polygenic risk scores to identify inherited DNA mutations and genetic predispositions that could lead to common diseases. In partnership with the MassMutual life insurance company, Genomics offers a voluntary test that provides personalized risk measures and advice about conversations with clinicians. If the policyholder stays healthy longer, the insurance company will get paid more premiums before paying out to survivors. Win-win all the way around.

Peter explains, "Until a few years ago, if I had the entire DNA sequence from a 40-year-old who's currently healthy, I'd have learned something interesting and medically actionable in maybe 1% or 2% of cases. That's because genetics has played into medicine through diseases where there's a single change in our DNA, called a mutation, which often stops a crucial gene from working. Think cystic fibrosis or Huntington's disease. Those are conditions that are individually serious. They're rare individually, thankfully, and actually, they're collectively rare. And so until a few years ago, and now still very much the case, genetic testing was about looking for those needles in haystacks, those one or two single places that caused a problem."

"Now, if I have genetic information from a 40-year-old who's healthy, I learn something medically useful in about 70% of cases. So, that massive change from 2% to 70% is because we can now measure the genetic component of risk for all of the common diseases, as I said, for heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, or prostate cancer."

"What we've learned is that for any one of those diseases, if we take heart disease as an example, there's not one gene that matters for heart disease. There aren't two genes. There are a million or more places in our DNA individual positions in our DNA, which affect someone's risk of heart disease. And we've now got large enough data sets and clever enough algorithms to measure those places and combine the information to get an overall summary for someone of their genetic predisposition to heart disease."

#Genomics #Genetics #PRS #PolygenicRiskScores #DrugDiscovery #Biopharma

genomicsplc.com

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Professor Sir Peter Donnelly, Founder and CEO of Genomics plc, aims to use cutting-edge polygenic risk scores to identify inherited DNA mutations and genetic predispositions that could lead to common diseases. In partnership with the MassMutual life insurance company, Genomics offers a voluntary test that provides personalized risk measures and advice about conversations with clinicians. If the policyholder stays healthy longer, the insurance company will get paid more premiums before paying out to survivors. Win-win all the way around.

Peter explains, "Until a few years ago, if I had the entire DNA sequence from a 40-year-old who's currently healthy, I'd have learned something interesting and medically actionable in maybe 1% or 2% of cases. That's because genetics has played into medicine through diseases where there's a single change in our DNA, called a mutation, which often stops a crucial gene from working. Think cystic fibrosis or Huntington's disease. Those are conditions that are individually serious. They're rare individually, thankfully, and actually, they're collectively rare. And so until a few years ago, and now still very much the case, genetic testing was about looking for those needles in haystacks, those one or two single places that caused a problem."

"Now, if I have genetic information from a 40-year-old who's healthy, I learn something medically useful in about 70% of cases. So, that massive change from 2% to 70% is because we can now measure the genetic component of risk for all of the common diseases, as I said, for heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, or prostate cancer."

"What we've learned is that for any one of those diseases, if we take heart disease as an example, there's not one gene that matters for heart disease. There aren't two genes. There are a million or more places in our DNA individual positions in our DNA, which affect someone's risk of heart disease. And we've now got large enough data sets and clever enough algorithms to measure those places and combine the information to get an overall summary for someone of their genetic predisposition to heart disease."

#Genomics #Genetics #PRS #PolygenicRiskScores #DrugDiscovery #Biopharma

genomicsplc.com

Download the transcript here

Oren Nissim, CEO and Co-Founder of Brook Health focuses on loneliness and its impact on individuals with chronic conditions, especially when access to support is limited. Societal stigma and guilt associated with chronic conditions often contribute to loneliness, which can include depression, lack of agency, and a sense of being alone. Brook Health provides nonjudgemental support to patients with chronic diseases using a combination of human interaction with health coaches and technology to help patients manage their conditions.

Oren elaborates, "I think that people who live at home with a condition need great support, and the reality is that they don't always have access to great support. Even if they do have great support, they still go home and have to live with it themselves - it drives people to feel lonely. I can tell you from my personal experience that I've been living with diabetes for a very long period of time, and the reality is that living with a chronic condition is a very lonely thing to do."

"It's interesting that you raise that because society, for a long period of time, has been characterizing having a chronic condition like diabetes or hypertension as you're not taking good care of yourself. "You should avoid this. You should have a better way to manage yourself." The reality is that for most people who have contracted these conditions, nobody chose to be there. And so, by virtue of that type of conversation, you end up feeling, "Oh, I'm not responsible enough. I haven't done what I should have done. I could do better, and I should do better." Very penalizing thoughts, and society judges people in this way. And, of course, that leads to loneliness as well. Again, we don't want to be celebrating our failures outside. It's not easy to do."

#BrookHealth #RemotePatientMonitoring #Loneliness #MentalHealth #BehavioralHealth #PublicHealth #ChronicDisease #AI

Brook.ai

Listen to the podcast here

Oren Nissim, CEO and Co-Founder of Brook Health focuses on loneliness and its impact on individuals with chronic conditions, especially when access to support is limited. Societal stigma and guilt associated with chronic conditions often contribute to loneliness, which can include depression, lack of agency, and a sense of being alone. Brook Health provides nonjudgemental support to patients with chronic diseases using a combination of human interaction with health coaches and technology to help patients manage their conditions.

Oren elaborates, "I think that people who live at home with a condition need great support, and the reality is that they don't always have access to great support. Even if they do have great support, they still go home and have to live with it themselves - it drives people to feel lonely. I can tell you from my personal experience that I've been living with diabetes for a very long period of time, and the reality is that living with a chronic condition is a very lonely thing to do."

"It's interesting that you raise that because society, for a long period of time, has been characterizing having a chronic condition like diabetes or hypertension as you're not taking good care of yourself. "You should avoid this. You should have a better way to manage yourself." The reality is that for most people who have contracted these conditions, nobody chose to be there. And so, by virtue of that type of conversation, you end up feeling, "Oh, I'm not responsible enough. I haven't done what I should have done. I could do better, and I should do better." Very penalizing thoughts, and society judges people in this way. And, of course, that leads to loneliness as well. Again, we don't want to be celebrating our failures outside. It's not easy to do."

#BrookHealth #RemotePatientMonitoring #Loneliness #MentalHealth #BehavioralHealth #PublicHealth #ChronicDisease #AI

Brook.ai

Download the transcript here