Empowered Patient Podcast

Mike Kelly, CEO of NervGen Pharma, discusses the company's vision to build a startup biotech focused on repairing the central nervous system, helping patients regain function, not just slowing progression. Their first product, NVG-291, is currently in clinical trials for spinal cord injury. The drug candidate aims to promote natural repair by targeting molecules called CSPGs that inhibit nerve growth and repair. NerveGen is also developing NVG-300 for other indications such as stroke, ALS, MS, and Alzheimer's. He draws parallels between his previous experience developing the Narcan Nasal Spray for opioid overdose and the unmet medical need in spinal cord injury.

Mike explains, "We are a company focusing on a group of products, more like a platform, that will enable the nervous system to repair itself. So the vision is to build a startup biotech focused in CNS and to get our first product over the line in spinal cord injury."

"There are no drugs available. So this is something that happens in an instant and someone's life has changed forever. The patient typically will then get hospitalized, have surgery to decompress the area that's injured, and then they're on the road to recovery. The only treatment is rehabilitation and exercise, and they push themselves to remake as many connections as possible. Still, that repair typically plateaus around six to nine months after their injury. And the level of function they regained during that period is where they'll be for the rest of their lives, unfortunately."

"NVG-291 is a product that aims to promote natural repair. When you damage, say, you cut your finger or break your foot, your body repairs itself very easily. When you damage your central nervous system, your body protects itself very well and inhibits repair, actually. Our drug targets one of those mechanisms that inhibit repair, turns it off, and allows the body to repair itself naturally."

#NervGenPharma #SCI #SpinalCordInjury #SpinalNews #SpinalInjury #Paralysis #NerveRepair #CNS

NervGen.com

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Mike Kelly, CEO of NervGen Pharma, discusses the company's vision to build a startup biotech focused on repairing the central nervous system, helping patients regain function, not just slowing progression. Their first product, NVG-291, is currently in clinical trials for spinal cord injury. The drug candidate aims to promote natural repair by targeting molecules called CSPGs that inhibit nerve growth and repair. NerveGen is also developing NVG-300 for other indications such as stroke, ALS, MS, and Alzheimer's. He draws parallels between his previous experience developing the Narcan Nasal Spray for opioid overdose and the unmet medical need in spinal cord injury.

Mike explains, "We are a company focusing on a group of products, more like a platform, that will enable the nervous system to repair itself. So the vision is to build a startup biotech focused in CNS and to get our first product over the line in spinal cord injury."

"There are no drugs available. So this is something that happens in an instant and someone's life has changed forever. The patient typically will then get hospitalized, have surgery to decompress the area that's injured, and then they're on the road to recovery. The only treatment is rehabilitation and exercise, and they push themselves to remake as many connections as possible. Still, that repair typically plateaus around six to nine months after their injury. And the level of function they regained during that period is where they'll be for the rest of their lives, unfortunately."

"NVG-291 is a product that aims to promote natural repair. When you damage, say, you cut your finger or break your foot, your body repairs itself very easily. When you damage your central nervous system, your body protects itself very well and inhibits repair, actually. Our drug targets one of those mechanisms that inhibit repair, turns it off, and allows the body to repair itself naturally."

#NervGenPharma #SCI #SpinalCordInjury #SpinalNews #SpinalInjury #Paralysis #NerveRepair #CNS

NervGen.com

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Matt Cronin, Founding Partner of House of Kaizen, discusses how patients' changing healthcare expectations are shaped by their experiences with products and services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. Consumers now expect a longer-term relationship and personalized experiences with their healthcare providers. House of Kaizen emphasizes the importance of building better customer experiences in health and wellness to improve health outcomes and create more value for businesses. In the age of AI, the importance of trust and brand reputation is paramount. Healthcare providers, as the trusted source of information and a filter for web-based searches, play a crucial role in this landscape.

Matt elaborates, "We're a specialized consulting firm for recurring revenue products and services. We build loyalty and advocacy for better lifetime value through customer experience optimization. We do this for all kinds of businesses that operate on a recurring revenue model, which includes many products and services in the health and wellness space. It's a space we've been working in for over 20 years. It's an area where we see a ton of leadership but also a ton of potential in understanding a longer-term customer journey. A true relationship, as opposed to a singular point with the transaction, actually can be a real advantage and an opportunity to set yourself apart from the competitors in the market space."

"When it comes to health and wellness, we have, of course, the healthcare scenario where people have recurring relationships with their physicians, they have recurring relationships with the healthcare systems in which they operate with their insurance companies. But they also have recurring relationships with the products that they may use, like software technology or hardware technology, the news and information that they consume related to their health and wellness, as well as replenishable products like the foods, drinks, supplements, medication, all of those things can make up their portfolio of health and wellness that is a long-term relationship."

#HouseofKaizen #PatientFirst #PatientExperience #HealthcareInnovation #HealthcareMarketing

houseofkaizen.com

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Matt Cronin, Founding Partner of House of Kaizen, discusses how patients' changing healthcare expectations are shaped by their experiences with products and services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. Consumers now expect a longer-term relationship and personalized experiences with their healthcare providers. House of Kaizen emphasizes the importance of building better customer experiences in health and wellness to improve health outcomes and create more value for businesses. In the age of AI, the importance of trust and brand reputation is paramount. Healthcare providers, as the trusted source of information and a filter for web-based searches, play a crucial role in this landscape.

Matt elaborates, "We're a specialized consulting firm for recurring revenue products and services. We build loyalty and advocacy for better lifetime value through customer experience optimization. We do this for all kinds of businesses that operate on a recurring revenue model, which includes many products and services in the health and wellness space. It's a space we've been working in for over 20 years. It's an area where we see a ton of leadership but also a ton of potential in understanding a longer-term customer journey. A true relationship, as opposed to a singular point with the transaction, actually can be a real advantage and an opportunity to set yourself apart from the competitors in the market space."

"When it comes to health and wellness, we have, of course, the healthcare scenario where people have recurring relationships with their physicians, they have recurring relationships with the healthcare systems in which they operate with their insurance companies. But they also have recurring relationships with the products that they may use, like software technology or hardware technology, the news and information that they consume related to their health and wellness, as well as replenishable products like the foods, drinks, supplements, medication, all of those things can make up their portfolio of health and wellness that is a long-term relationship."

#HouseofKaizen #PatientFirst #PatientExperience #HealthcareInnovation #HealthcareMarketing

houseofkaizen.com

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Dr. Mollie Leoni, Executive Vice President for Clinical Development of Kura Oncology, discusses the company's ziftomenib program, a menin inhibitor for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The company initially allowed all AML patients to participate in the clinical study, but later found that specific subtypes, such as those with NPM1 mutation or KMT2A rearrangement, were more likely to respond to the menin inhibitor. They also discovered other subtypes that were responsive, expanding the potential patient population. Understanding the role of menin and menin inhibitors in addressing abnormal gene expression and promoting healthy cell development opens the door to potential combination therapy, where menin inhibitors could be layered onto existing treatments for various cancers related to menin independence.

Mollie explains, "In oncology, we have gotten good at treating the end state, but cancer has many, many causes with a common final endpoint to the way the cells look. So, it's many, many different diseases all at once. We've learned and are learning that with better technology and a better understanding of cancer in general we can identify not just how to stop the end state but how to stop it from starting."

"That's where ziftomenib comes in. Ziftomenib addresses key mutations that when they occur, are what cause the development of cancer. So you're able to shut down the development and force the cells to develop normally rather than waiting until they're already diseased and killing them with chemotherapy or some other cytotoxic agent."

"There is a protein complex that we refer to as the menin MLL complex, which goes rogue when something unusual happens in the cell. For example, that could be an NPM1 mutation. That could be a KMT2A rearrangement. Those are two things that are well-known to happen within AML diseases. It could also be a SETD2 RUNX1 mutation. So many types of mutations could happen that could cause this machinery to go rogue within the cell. And that complex causes genes to become active at levels and at times that are abnormal."

#KuraOncology #Ziftomenib #MeninInhibitors #PrecisionMedicine #BTD #AML

KuraOncology.com

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Dr. Mollie Leoni, Executive Vice President for Clinical Development of Kura Oncology, discusses the company's ziftomenib program, a menin inhibitor for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The company initially allowed all AML patients to participate in the clinical study, but later found that specific subtypes, such as those with NPM1 mutation or KMT2A rearrangement, were more likely to respond to the menin inhibitor. They also discovered other subtypes that were responsive, expanding the potential patient population. Understanding the role of menin and menin inhibitors in addressing abnormal gene expression and promoting healthy cell development opens the door to potential combination therapy, where menin inhibitors could be layered onto existing treatments for various cancers related to menin independence.

Mollie explains, "In oncology, we have gotten good at treating the end state, but cancer has many, many causes with a common final endpoint to the way the cells look. So, it's many, many different diseases all at once. We've learned and are learning that with better technology and a better understanding of cancer in general we can identify not just how to stop the end state but how to stop it from starting."

"That's where ziftomenib comes in. Ziftomenib addresses key mutations that when they occur, are what cause the development of cancer. So you're able to shut down the development and force the cells to develop normally rather than waiting until they're already diseased and killing them with chemotherapy or some other cytotoxic agent."

"There is a protein complex that we refer to as the menin MLL complex, which goes rogue when something unusual happens in the cell. For example, that could be an NPM1 mutation. That could be a KMT2A rearrangement. Those are two things that are well-known to happen within AML diseases. It could also be a SETD2 RUNX1 mutation. So many types of mutations could happen that could cause this machinery to go rogue within the cell. And that complex causes genes to become active at levels and at times that are abnormal."

#KuraOncology #Ziftomenib #MeninInhibitors #PrecisionMedicine #BTD #AML

KuraOncology.com

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Dr. Steffen-Sebastian Bolz, Chief Scientific Officer of Swiss-based Aphaia Pharma, shines a light on the excitement around weight loss drugs due to the discovery that GLP-1 agonists and points out the shift in the perception of obesity as a root cause of various health issues. Aphaia Pharma's approach involves stimulating hormone production in the small intestine by reinvigorating the mechanism that has become dormant due to the ingestion of highly refined foods. The company is also exploring the effects of the circadian rhythm on weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight.

Steffen elaborates, "What is understood now is obesity is the root cause of many sequel pathologies like type 2 diabetes, diabetes, fatty liver disease, and a whole lot of cardiovascular disease. So, the idea is that if we get obesity under control and the obesity pandemic under control, we might also lower the incidence of all the other diseases. There's a massive rush into this field because there are already blockbuster drugs in the market, as you just said, and there are already 1 billion people worldwide who are obese and our projections predict that rapid growth of these numbers. So this is kind of the gold rush."

"Let me start with briefly outlining the mode of action of GLP-1 agonists. A common denominator of all metabolic diseases, either obesity or a related disease, is a lack of hormone output from the small intestine. What's behind this is that the small intestine is capable of producing hormones in response to food intake."

"All these hormones act in an orchestrated fashion to allow digestion, proper immune control, and all these things. It was found that all these hormones are reduced in patients with obesity, and GLP-1 agonists replace one of those hormones, GLP-1. They do this by injecting very high doses to yield the effects we're seeing, such as type 2 diabetes control and weight loss. But that's just the hormone replacement therapy. That's just one hormone out of a large portfolio, out of hundreds of hormones produced by the small intestine. And that is exactly where our thought process started."

#AphaiaPharma #Obesity #GLP1Agonists #SmallIntestine #WeightLoss

AphaiaPharma.com

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Dr. Steffen-Sebastian Bolz, Chief Scientific Officer of Swiss-based Aphaia Pharma, shines a light on the excitement around weight loss drugs due to the discovery that GLP-1 agonists and points out the shift in the perception of obesity as a root cause of various health issues. Aphaia Pharma's approach involves stimulating hormone production in the small intestine by reinvigorating the mechanism that has become dormant due to the ingestion of highly refined foods. The company is also exploring the effects of the circadian rhythm on weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight.

Steffen elaborates, "What is understood now is obesity is the root cause of many sequel pathologies like type 2 diabetes, diabetes, fatty liver disease, and a whole lot of cardiovascular disease. So, the idea is that if we get obesity under control and the obesity pandemic under control, we might also lower the incidence of all the other diseases. There's a massive rush into this field because there are already blockbuster drugs in the market, as you just said, and there are already 1 billion people worldwide who are obese and our projections predict that rapid growth of these numbers. So this is kind of the gold rush."

"Let me start with briefly outlining the mode of action of GLP-1 agonists. A common denominator of all metabolic diseases, either obesity or a related disease, is a lack of hormone output from the small intestine. What's behind this is that the small intestine is capable of producing hormones in response to food intake."

"All these hormones act in an orchestrated fashion to allow digestion, proper immune control, and all these things. It was found that all these hormones are reduced in patients with obesity, and GLP-1 agonists replace one of those hormones, GLP-1. They do this by injecting very high doses to yield the effects we're seeing, such as type 2 diabetes control and weight loss. But that's just the hormone replacement therapy. That's just one hormone out of a large portfolio, out of hundreds of hormones produced by the small intestine. And that is exactly where our thought process started."

#AphaiaPharma #Obesity #GLP1Agonists #SmallIntestine #WeightLoss

AphaiaPharma.com

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Rick Vanzura, CEO of Freight Farms, and Dr. Amber Orman, Chief Wellness Officer at Advent Health, discuss their partnership in bringing hyperlocal, sustainable food to healthcare facilities. Freight Farms uses modified shipping containers to grow crops, allowing for year-round production with minimal land and water usage. Advent Health recognized the importance of nutrition in whole-person care and saw the opportunity to provide their team members, physicians, patients, and the public with fresh, nutritious food and donate to local food pantries. The partnership has demonstrated the power of food as medicine and the potential for sustainable farming practices in healthcare settings.

Rick explains, "We grow about two and a half to three acres worth of crops out of an 8 by 40-foot shipping container. It looks like any shipping container you would see on a dock or a boat, but it's highly modified to grow food using LED lights, airflow, nutrients delivered through the farm, and controlled through software. It's really designed so you can grow 365 days a year, very clean food, with temperatures from minus 40° to 120°, and do that consistently. And again, get all of the value of it being hyperlocal and fresh and using minimal land and water."

Amber elaborates," We have a doctors' lounge where the doctors, nurse practitioners, and some leaders eat. We also have a public-facing cafeteria, so anybody who visits the hospital can eat in the cafeteria. It's served in there. It's served in our patient meals, so we have certain meals containing the produce, so all of our salads, sandwiches, and wraps. Then we're also supplying anything extra to a local food pantry, and then they also donate to Kingdom Kids Academy in Kissimmee. We are able to sustain all of these things and donate some extra when we have it, even out to the community. It certainly provides better nutrition within a given day to those patients and team members and the people who receive the donations. It's also a way to start educating people about the benefits of eating more plants. We all need to eat more plants for better health, and so that's one of our guiding missions here."

#AdventHealth #FreightFarms #VerticalFarming #Healthcare #FoodAsMedicine #AgTech

adventhealth.com

freightfarms.com

Listen to the podcast here

Rick Vanzura, CEO of Freight Farms, and Dr. Amber Orman, Chief Wellness Officer at Advent Health, discuss their partnership in bringing hyperlocal, sustainable food to healthcare facilities. Freight Farms uses modified shipping containers to grow crops, allowing for year-round production with minimal land and water usage. Advent Health recognized the importance of nutrition in whole-person care and saw the opportunity to provide their team members, physicians, patients, and the public with fresh, nutritious food and donate to local food pantries. The partnership has demonstrated the power of food as medicine and the potential for sustainable farming practices in healthcare settings.

Rick explains, "We grow about two and a half to three acres worth of crops out of an 8 by 40-foot shipping container. It looks like any shipping container you would see on a dock or a boat, but it's highly modified to grow food using LED lights, airflow, nutrients delivered through the farm, and controlled through software. It's really designed so you can grow 365 days a year, very clean food, with temperatures from minus 40° to 120°, and do that consistently. And again, get all of the value of it being hyperlocal and fresh and using minimal land and water."

Amber elaborates," We have a doctors' lounge where the doctors, nurse practitioners, and some leaders eat. We also have a public-facing cafeteria, so anybody who visits the hospital can eat in the cafeteria. It's served in there. It's served in our patient meals, so we have certain meals containing the produce, so all of our salads, sandwiches, and wraps. Then we're also supplying anything extra to a local food pantry, and then they also donate to Kingdom Kids Academy in Kissimmee. We are able to sustain all of these things and donate some extra when we have it, even out to the community. It certainly provides better nutrition within a given day to those patients and team members and the people who receive the donations. It's also a way to start educating people about the benefits of eating more plants. We all need to eat more plants for better health, and so that's one of our guiding missions here."

#AdventHealth #FreightFarms #VerticalFarming #Healthcare #FoodAsMedicine #AgTech

adventhealth.com

freightfarms.com

Download the transcript here