Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Abu Abraham, Chief Medical Officer at Cloudbreak Pharma, discusses the disease burden and gaps in care for patients with Pterygium, also known as Surfer's eye. Pterygium is an ocular surface disorder that creates a growth on the eye's surface that can cause vision problems. The condition is more prevalent in individuals over 40, but it can also affect younger populations exposed to risk factors from spending time outside in the sun and being exposed to UV light. Cloudbreak Pharma is developing CBT-001, an investigational therapy, a multi-kinase inhibitor administered as an eye drop that aims to stop the progression of Pterygium.

Abu explains, "Pterygium is a relatively common condition. It's an ocular surface disorder. It's a growth. The word Pterygium derives from the Greek pteryx, which means wedge-shaped. This growth is also a wedge shape that grows from the mucous membrane that overlies the white portion of a person's eye and grows in the direction of the cornea. The cornea itself is a curved structure that's clear, and its function is to focus light or bend light to enter the right way into the eye."

"But this can affect anybody who has exposure to UV light. A person working outdoors or even doing a lot of outdoor activities in their free time has the potential to have a Pterygium grow on their eye as one of the triggers. UV light is not the only trigger. There is the potential, possibly, that there are genetic factors. I think they have been identified but may not be fully understood, as well as the genetic factors that contribute to the growth of a Pterygium."

#CloudbreakPharma #Pterygium #SurfersEye #OcularDisease #OcularExternalDisease #PatientBurden

CloudbreakPharma.com

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Dr. Abu Abraham, Chief Medical Officer at Cloudbreak Pharma, discusses the disease burden and gaps in care for patients with Pterygium, also known as Surfer's eye. Pterygium is an ocular surface disorder that creates a growth on the eye's surface that can cause vision problems. The condition is more prevalent in individuals over 40, but it can also affect younger populations exposed to risk factors from spending time outside in the sun and being exposed to UV light. Cloudbreak Pharma is developing CBT-001, an investigational therapy, a multi-kinase inhibitor administered as an eye drop that aims to stop the progression of Pterygium.

Abu explains, "Pterygium is a relatively common condition. It's an ocular surface disorder. It's a growth. The word Pterygium derives from the Greek pteryx, which means wedge-shaped. This growth is also a wedge shape that grows from the mucous membrane that overlies the white portion of a person's eye and grows in the direction of the cornea. The cornea itself is a curved structure that's clear, and its function is to focus light or bend light to enter the right way into the eye."

"But this can affect anybody who has exposure to UV light. A person working outdoors or even doing a lot of outdoor activities in their free time has the potential to have a Pterygium grow on their eye as one of the triggers. UV light is not the only trigger. There is the potential, possibly, that there are genetic factors. I think they have been identified but may not be fully understood, as well as the genetic factors that contribute to the growth of a Pterygium."

#CloudbreakPharma #Pterygium #SurfersEye #OcularDisease #OcularExternalDisease #PatientBurden

CloudbreakPharma.com

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Fadi Micaelian, CEO of Sparkdit, teaches machines to think like humans by understanding trade-offs. AI is not good at finding nuance and capturing trade-offs, which is where Sparkdit comes in. They have developed a technology that can teach computers to make trade-offs like humans and put humans at the center of the technology rather than replacing them. Incorporating AI into patient-centered decision formats can revolutionize healthcare, improve the way doctors interact with patients, and address issues like ageism, sexism, and racism.

Fadi explains, "We have been working in AI for years. And AI is magnificent when the data is in abundance. However, we felt that AI fell short in a series of areas, and the main one is to teach machines to think like humans. Because AI, at the end of the day, does not think like humans. AI thinks like neurons. But we humans think very differently. Our thinking is universal. Whether you are an Eskimo, or you are in Paris, or you are in Russia, or whether you're in South Africa, we all think the same way. The way we think is by trade-offs, and AI does not understand trade-offs. So we set our mission to teach machines to think like humans, by trade-offs."

"To do that, we needed to create a platform, and that platform was based on trade-offs. It was based on the way we think. We're trying to mimic the way humans think, and that's doing trade-off. How do we think? When we have a decision to make, we take a set of criteria into account. Then, we apply to each criterion a certain logic - how we think about that criterion. Then we overlay that with a set of trade-offs that says really what is the relative importance of the criteria, which ones are important, and which ones are not."

#Sparkdit #AI #AppliedAI #AIinHealthcare #TrainingAI

Sparkdit.com

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Fadi Micaelian, CEO of Sparkdit, teaches machines to think like humans by understanding trade-offs. AI is not good at finding nuance and capturing trade-offs, which is where Sparkdit comes in. They have developed a technology that can teach computers to make trade-offs like humans and put humans at the center of the technology rather than replacing them. Incorporating AI into patient-centered decision formats can revolutionize healthcare, improve the way doctors interact with patients, and address issues like ageism, sexism, and racism.

Fadi explains, "We have been working in AI for years. And AI is magnificent when the data is in abundance. However, we felt that AI fell short in a series of areas, and the main one is to teach machines to think like humans. Because AI, at the end of the day, does not think like humans. AI thinks like neurons. But we humans think very differently. Our thinking is universal. Whether you are an Eskimo, or you are in Paris, or you are in Russia, or whether you're in South Africa, we all think the same way. The way we think is by trade-offs, and AI does not understand trade-offs. So we set our mission to teach machines to think like humans, by trade-offs."

"To do that, we needed to create a platform, and that platform was based on trade-offs. It was based on the way we think. We're trying to mimic the way humans think, and that's doing trade-off. How do we think? When we have a decision to make, we take a set of criteria into account. Then, we apply to each criterion a certain logic - how we think about that criterion. Then we overlay that with a set of trade-offs that says really what is the relative importance of the criteria, which ones are important, and which ones are not."

#Sparkdit #AI #AppliedAI #AIinHealthcare #TrainingAI

Sparkdit.com

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Sofia Elizondo, COO and Co-Founder of Brightseed, discusses the company's focus on bioactives and their potential to improve health outcomes. Bioactives are small molecules found in nature, such as plants, fungi, or bacteria, that activate human biological receptors and positively affect the body. Brightseed uses its AI platform, Forager, to identify and commercialize these bioactive compounds in foods, supplements, and over-the-counter medicine. As part of the food is medicine movement, Brightseed's goal is to make these superfoods more accessible to a broader population.

Sofia explains, "To bring us back to the source, caffeine is a small molecule. It's a natural chemical that a seed produces. And so we take these coffee seeds, grind them up, and then extract the caffeine and other tasty flavors with water every morning."

"When we take a sip of our coffee, it's actually very well understood what happens with caffeine. We absorb it in our stomach lining. The caffeine molecule goes into our bloodstream, goes into our brain while our blood is circulating around our body, and docks with a biological receptor called the adenosine receptor in our brain. What happens is it interacts with this receptor, and then we feel a bunch of downstream effects. We feel focus and energy, and maybe too much of an adrenaline rush sometimes."

"But this is a great example that many of us can be familiar with of the power of such a small molecule. It's just one bioactive in one bean of one plant that can have this very precise and recognizable effect. In this case, science knows very well exactly what it does."

"In the big picture of bioactives, there are hundreds of thousands of them in plants and foods that we eat every day that we may not know or may not have cataloged. Science, in most cases, doesn't exactly know what it does when we ingest these bioactives, at least not yet."

#Brightseed #AppliedAI #Bioactive #Nutrition #FoodisMedicine

brightseedbio.com

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Sofia Elizondo, COO and Co-Founder of Brightseed, discusses the company's focus on bioactives and their potential to improve health outcomes. Bioactives are small molecules found in nature, such as plants, fungi, or bacteria, that activate human biological receptors and positively affect the body. Brightseed uses its AI platform, Forager, to identify and commercialize these bioactive compounds in foods, supplements, and over-the-counter medicine. As part of the food is medicine movement, Brightseed's goal is to make these superfoods more accessible to a broader population.

Sofia explains, "To bring us back to the source, caffeine is a small molecule. It's a natural chemical that a seed produces. And so we take these coffee seeds, grind them up, and then extract the caffeine and other tasty flavors with water every morning."

"When we take a sip of our coffee, it's actually very well understood what happens with caffeine. We absorb it in our stomach lining. The caffeine molecule goes into our bloodstream, goes into our brain while our blood is circulating around our body, and docks with a biological receptor called the adenosine receptor in our brain. What happens is it interacts with this receptor, and then we feel a bunch of downstream effects. We feel focus and energy, and maybe too much of an adrenaline rush sometimes."

"But this is a great example that many of us can be familiar with of the power of such a small molecule. It's just one bioactive in one bean of one plant that can have this very precise and recognizable effect. In this case, science knows very well exactly what it does."

"In the big picture of bioactives, there are hundreds of thousands of them in plants and foods that we eat every day that we may not know or may not have cataloged. Science, in most cases, doesn't exactly know what it does when we ingest these bioactives, at least not yet."

#Brightseed #AppliedAI #Bioactive #Nutrition #FoodisMedicine

brightseedbio.com

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Luke Piggott, principal scientist at Debiopharm, has a unique business model in the drug discovery and development to commercialization landscape. Focusing on rare cancers, they license drugs from smaller biotechs and conduct clinical trials before out-licensing them to larger pharmaceutical companies with marketing capabilities. The use of AI is expanding biomarker discovery and the identification of potential novel mechanisms for targeted therapies. Novel-novel combinations are being explored to provide therapies with more selective profiles with fewer side effects.

Luke explains, "Rare cancers is an interesting area. I mean, it's never an easy one to be developing in the space of rare cancers. With a business model like ours, we have the opportunity to take some of these assets that perhaps are not as, shall we say, financially attractive to investors because of the smaller market opportunity. As a privately owned company, we have the ability to develop these kinds of drugs and move them ahead with solid financial backing. And so I think that's one of the areas that we have the opportunity where some other companies would not."

"We do see overlap there with other diseases, although they may be morphologically different than the current specific sites that are more rare than other diseases. These underlying mechanisms are consistent across the different types of cancers. Now that we're in the era of precision medicine and going after specific key oncogenic drivers of these tumors, it does allow potential opportunities to treat them in a more similar fashion, shall we say, to the larger populations or at least re-purpose some of those drugs and try them out on these rarer diseases."

#Debiopharm #RareDiseases #RareCancers #DrugDevelopment #PrecisionMedicine #BiotechInvestment

Debiopharm.com

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Luke Piggott, principal scientist at Debiopharm, has a unique business model in the drug discovery and development to commercialization landscape. Focusing on rare cancers, they license drugs from smaller biotechs and conduct clinical trials before out-licensing them to larger pharmaceutical companies with marketing capabilities. The use of AI is expanding biomarker discovery and the identification of potential novel mechanisms for targeted therapies. Novel-novel combinations are being explored to provide therapies with more selective profiles with fewer side effects.

Luke explains, "Rare cancers is an interesting area. I mean, it's never an easy one to be developing in the space of rare cancers. With a business model like ours, we have the opportunity to take some of these assets that perhaps are not as, shall we say, financially attractive to investors because of the smaller market opportunity. As a privately owned company, we have the ability to develop these kinds of drugs and move them ahead with solid financial backing. And so I think that's one of the areas that we have the opportunity where some other companies would not."

"We do see overlap there with other diseases, although they may be morphologically different than the current specific sites that are more rare than other diseases. These underlying mechanisms are consistent across the different types of cancers. Now that we're in the era of precision medicine and going after specific key oncogenic drivers of these tumors, it does allow potential opportunities to treat them in a more similar fashion, shall we say, to the larger populations or at least re-purpose some of those drugs and try them out on these rarer diseases."

#Debiopharm #RareDiseases #RareCancers #DrugDevelopment #PrecisionMedicine #BiotechInvestment

Debiopharm.com

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Tiara Green, President of Accessia Health, provides financial assistance for copayments, physician visits, durable medical equipment, radiology testing, and travel expenses to support individuals with rare and chronic healthcare conditions who cannot afford their care. They also offer educational services to help patients navigate the healthcare system and make informed decisions about their healthcare. They are reaching out to patients through physicians, pharmacies, patient advocacy organizations, and faith-based and community-based organizations. Accessia Health aims to improve overall healthcare outcomes by using online tools to reduce emergency room visits and help patients adhere to treatment plans.

Tiara explains, "Accessia Health is a national nonprofit organization. We're a patient assistance organization that supports individuals with rare and chronic healthcare conditions. I think we all have been impacted or have been in the healthcare system to receive care, and we know that the cost of care is extremely high. So, our mission is to serve as a safety net for those individuals who cannot afford their care. I love our tagline, "We speak health and human," because we realize the human side of healthcare in that we're people first, and individuals are not necessarily defined by their condition. However, we also understand what it means to navigate the healthcare system. We want to do our part to stand in the gap for them and help them with their costs so that they can focus on their healthcare journey."

"We also provide educational services. We have a webinar series, Amplify Your Voice, Control Your Care, where we want to give those individuals tools for success, helping them navigate the complex healthcare system to make informed decisions about their healthcare. So, it may be a topic on, "How do I properly communicate with my physician?" Or it can be a topic such as, "What does the Inflation Reduction Act mean for me?" However, we want to ensure that they understand their healthcare so that they can make the appropriate decisions."

#AccessiaHealth #PatientAssistance #FinancialAssistance #RareDiseases #ChronicConditions

AccessiaHealth.org

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Tiara Green, President of Accessia Health, provides financial assistance for copayments, physician visits, durable medical equipment, radiology testing, and travel expenses to support individuals with rare and chronic healthcare conditions who cannot afford their care. They also offer educational services to help patients navigate the healthcare system and make informed decisions about their healthcare. They are reaching out to patients through physicians, pharmacies, patient advocacy organizations, and faith-based and community-based organizations. Accessia Health aims to improve overall healthcare outcomes by using online tools to reduce emergency room visits and help patients adhere to treatment plans.

Tiara explains, "Accessia Health is a national nonprofit organization. We're a patient assistance organization that supports individuals with rare and chronic healthcare conditions. I think we all have been impacted or have been in the healthcare system to receive care, and we know that the cost of care is extremely high. So, our mission is to serve as a safety net for those individuals who cannot afford their care. I love our tagline, "We speak health and human," because we realize the human side of healthcare in that we're people first, and individuals are not necessarily defined by their condition. However, we also understand what it means to navigate the healthcare system. We want to do our part to stand in the gap for them and help them with their costs so that they can focus on their healthcare journey."

"We also provide educational services. We have a webinar series, Amplify Your Voice, Control Your Care, where we want to give those individuals tools for success, helping them navigate the complex healthcare system to make informed decisions about their healthcare. So, it may be a topic on, "How do I properly communicate with my physician?" Or it can be a topic such as, "What does the Inflation Reduction Act mean for me?" However, we want to ensure that they understand their healthcare so that they can make the appropriate decisions."

#AccessiaHealth #PatientAssistance #FinancialAssistance #RareDiseases #ChronicConditions

AccessiaHealth.org

Download the transcript here