Empowered Patient Podcast

Larry Margolis, CEO of PersonalRX, provides medication management for patients and caregivers by delivering personalized dose packs to patients' homes with tracking functionality to inform when drugs are taken. The number of people with comorbidities is increasing, requiring complex regimens and medication reconciliation to ensure patient safety. PersonalRX works with healthcare providers, patients, and caregivers to ensure prescription, supplements, and over-the-counter drugs are used correctly.

Larry explains, "Our typical patient profile is somebody, on average, who takes nine medications. We service the market of people with five medications or more, representing roughly 12.9% of the population, about 42 million people."

"I think one of the most important tools that we use when we're looking at people who are living longer, have more complex cases and comorbidities, and are taking more medication is looking at the medical reconciliation tools that we've built. And we've spent a lot of time over the last year building and enhancing those tools."

"So there is a safety hazard that many patients and caregivers don't realize that presents when you have multiple medications, multiple prescribers, supplements, and all of those kinds of things involved. Medications can negatively interact and can be mixed up by pharmacies and patients."

"When we can align all of those things into a singular place, PersonalRX is that kind of pharmacy that has trusted supervision for medication management. Still, it improves patient safety and overall health. As complexity increases, we think it's something that becomes more and more important every day."

#PersonalRX #Pharmacy #PrescriptionDrugs #MedicationManagement #MedicationDistribution #MedicationInteractions

personalrx.com

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Larry Margolis, CEO of PersonalRX, provides medication management for patients and caregivers by delivering personalized dose packs to patients' homes with tracking functionality to inform when drugs are taken. The number of people with comorbidities is increasing, requiring complex regimens and medication reconciliation to ensure patient safety. PersonalRX works with healthcare providers, patients, and caregivers to ensure prescription, supplements, and over-the-counter drugs are used correctly.

Larry explains, "Our typical patient profile is somebody, on average, who takes nine medications. We service the market of people with five medications or more, representing roughly 12.9% of the population, about 42 million people."

"I think one of the most important tools that we use when we're looking at people who are living longer, have more complex cases and comorbidities, and are taking more medication is looking at the medical reconciliation tools that we've built. And we've spent a lot of time over the last year building and enhancing those tools."

"So there is a safety hazard that many patients and caregivers don't realize that presents when you have multiple medications, multiple prescribers, supplements, and all of those kinds of things involved. Medications can negatively interact and can be mixed up by pharmacies and patients."

"When we can align all of those things into a singular place, PersonalRX is that kind of pharmacy that has trusted supervision for medication management. Still, it improves patient safety and overall health. As complexity increases, we think it's something that becomes more and more important every day."

#PersonalRX #Pharmacy #PrescriptionDrugs #MedicationManagement #MedicationDistribution #MedicationInteractions

personalrx.com

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Wensheng Fan, CEO and Co-Founder of Spectral AI, understands that the ability to accurately determine whether a wound will heal is currently lacking in wound care. The Spectral AI predictive imaging technology uses multispectral imaging and AI to assess the viability of injured tissue and predict wound healing outcomes. The DeepView device is portable and easy to use, providing fast analysis and saving time in determining the appropriate next steps to treat acute and chronic wounds.

Wensheng explains, "Ten years ago when we were founded, we were doing bed sore early detections. Then we transitioned into burn wounds, and the latest adventure is for the diabetic foot ulcer. We see all these acute and chronic wounds, and they all need a common thing to let physicians, clinicians, and patients know whether these wounds will heal or not. That's a simple question, but so far, we don't have a good answer to it with the technology on the market."

"For example, let's use acute burn wounds. The current standard of care, per se, is actually the physicians have to wait and see, sometimes up to 21 days, to determine if a burn will heal or not. Why are they so careful? Because visually the wound changes and if it's a non-healing burn, what they need to do is clinically debride that area to take out the dead tissue so that they can put the skin substitute and other products on it to help the overall healing."

"We look at the wound from near UV lights across the visible band seen in the human eye and into the near IR lights. We capture the injured tissue's spectral signature, like a fingerprint for those non-healing tissues. We found it and then realized ten years ago that the human brain is not good enough to process that information. We introduced AI, machine learning, deep learning, and all those advanced technologies in identifying non-healing burn tissue since 2014. So far, we have achieved 92% accuracy on day one of looking at a burn wound to decide where that burn wound will never heal or if there are healing tissues that you don't need to take into surgical consideration. So, this technology will become an assistant to burn professionals and ER doctors in deciding how to process the patients during that first encounter."

#SpectralAI #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #WoundHealing #DiabeticFootUlcers #BurnInjuries

Spectral-AI.com

Listen to the podcast here

Wensheng Fan, CEO and Co-Founder of Spectral AI, understands that the ability to accurately determine whether a wound will heal is currently lacking in wound care. The Spectral AI predictive imaging technology uses multispectral imaging and AI to assess the viability of injured tissue and predict wound healing outcomes. The DeepView device is portable and easy to use, providing fast analysis and saving time in determining the appropriate next steps to treat acute and chronic wounds.

Wensheng explains, "Ten years ago when we were founded, we were doing bed sore early detections. Then we transitioned into burn wounds, and the latest adventure is for the diabetic foot ulcer. We see all these acute and chronic wounds, and they all need a common thing to let physicians, clinicians, and patients know whether these wounds will heal or not. That's a simple question, but so far, we don't have a good answer to it with the technology on the market."

"For example, let's use acute burn wounds. The current standard of care, per se, is actually the physicians have to wait and see, sometimes up to 21 days, to determine if a burn will heal or not. Why are they so careful? Because visually the wound changes and if it's a non-healing burn, what they need to do is clinically debride that area to take out the dead tissue so that they can put the skin substitute and other products on it to help the overall healing."

"We look at the wound from near UV lights across the visible band seen in the human eye and into the near IR lights. We capture the injured tissue's spectral signature, like a fingerprint for those non-healing tissues. We found it and then realized ten years ago that the human brain is not good enough to process that information. We introduced AI, machine learning, deep learning, and all those advanced technologies in identifying non-healing burn tissue since 2014. So far, we have achieved 92% accuracy on day one of looking at a burn wound to decide where that burn wound will never heal or if there are healing tissues that you don't need to take into surgical consideration. So, this technology will become an assistant to burn professionals and ER doctors in deciding how to process the patients during that first encounter."

#SpectralAI #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #WoundHealing #DiabeticFootUlcers #BurnInjuries

Spectral-AI.com

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Dr. Shuba Iyengar, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Allermi, is focused on providing better care and access to allergy treatments. Allermi has developed a personalized approach to diagnosing allergies and personalizing nasal spray formulations to provide a more precise solution to those suffering from nasal congestion, coughing, sinus pain, and itchy eyes. While there are seasonal allergies, doctors are seeing an increase in allergies related to climate change, pollution, and other changes in the environment.

Shuba explains, "We want to make sure that everyone knows that allergies are a chronic problem and affect your everyday life. I have allergies, so I completely sympathize with people who have bad allergies. But when you get allergies, what's happening is the inside of your nose is getting a little bit swollen. But to some extent, in the beginning, you can kind of compensate. You can get by. So, if you can't breathe to one side, you'll breathe through the other. If you can't breathe through the side, you'll start to mouth breathe."

"As allergists and even general doctors, the toolbox we have to treat allergies is okay but not great for everyone. A lot of times, if they can see their doctor, people might get a prescription nasal spray or be advised to take an oral antihistamine or an allergy pill. They might go to the drugstore and try to buy an over-the-counter nasal spray like Flonase or Nasacort. And for a lot of people, these medicines don't quite work as well or not enough."

#Allermi #Allergies #AllergyCare #Telehealth

allermi.com

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Dr. Shuba Iyengar, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Allermi, is focused on providing better care and access to allergy treatments. Allermi has developed a personalized approach to diagnosing allergies and personalizing nasal spray formulations to provide a more precise solution to those suffering from nasal congestion, coughing, sinus pain, and itchy eyes. While there are seasonal allergies, doctors are seeing an increase in allergies related to climate change, pollution, and other changes in the environment.

Shuba explains, "We want to make sure that everyone knows that allergies are a chronic problem and affect your everyday life. I have allergies, so I completely sympathize with people who have bad allergies. But when you get allergies, what's happening is the inside of your nose is getting a little bit swollen. But to some extent, in the beginning, you can kind of compensate. You can get by. So, if you can't breathe to one side, you'll breathe through the other. If you can't breathe through the side, you'll start to mouth breathe."

"As allergists and even general doctors, the toolbox we have to treat allergies is okay but not great for everyone. A lot of times, if they can see their doctor, people might get a prescription nasal spray or be advised to take an oral antihistamine or an allergy pill. They might go to the drugstore and try to buy an over-the-counter nasal spray like Flonase or Nasacort. And for a lot of people, these medicines don't quite work as well or not enough."

#Allermi #Allergies #AllergyCare #Telehealth

allermi.com

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Joe Scalia, Vice President and Head of Commercial Market Access and Global Marketing for Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America, highlights the company's focus on rare diseases, particularly ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The company's goal is to find a cure for ALS and improve the quality of life for patients while raising awareness to reduce the time to diagnosis. With a patient support program, JourneyMate, the company offers resources and support for ALS patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers.

Joe explains, "When it comes to neuromuscular diseases, these are one of the hardest areas to treat and for medicines to impact patient's lives. So, when you look at neuromuscular diseases like ALS, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's, these are diseases that impact millions of patients across the United States, and the treatments are very hard to come across. For example, on ALS, before our medication came out, there were over 20 years and 50 failures of medications. There's a high unmet need for these patients, so companies like ours are focused on finding these medications to help support them."

"There's also a correlation with a higher rate of ALS for our veterans, and we're not sure exactly why. There's some belief that there may be some type of chemical exposure or vaccine exposure. We're not sure the reason why, but there is a higher incidence also for firefighters. So this is a population that we need to continue to help -- 20,000 to 30,000 patients who are desperately looking for additional support and potentially a cure in the future."

"It goes back to, we've been investing in ALS for over 20 years, and it's taken that long to come up with the molecules to help these patients. So, an organization like ours has been around for over 330 years. We look at fighting diseases, not looking at one year, but decades of research to hopefully find medications that will help patients. So, it takes an organization that is committed to the space."

#MTPA #RareDisease #RareDiseaseAwareness #ALS #EndALS #ALSAwareness #LouGehrigsDisease

mt-pharma-america.com

Listen to the podcast here

Joe Scalia, Vice President and Head of Commercial Market Access and Global Marketing for Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America, highlights the company's focus on rare diseases, particularly ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The company's goal is to find a cure for ALS and improve the quality of life for patients while raising awareness to reduce the time to diagnosis. With a patient support program, JourneyMate, the company offers resources and support for ALS patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers.

Joe explains, "When it comes to neuromuscular diseases, these are one of the hardest areas to treat and for medicines to impact patient's lives. So, when you look at neuromuscular diseases like ALS, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's, these are diseases that impact millions of patients across the United States, and the treatments are very hard to come across. For example, on ALS, before our medication came out, there were over 20 years and 50 failures of medications. There's a high unmet need for these patients, so companies like ours are focused on finding these medications to help support them."

"There's also a correlation with a higher rate of ALS for our veterans, and we're not sure exactly why. There's some belief that there may be some type of chemical exposure or vaccine exposure. We're not sure the reason why, but there is a higher incidence also for firefighters. So this is a population that we need to continue to help -- 20,000 to 30,000 patients who are desperately looking for additional support and potentially a cure in the future."

"It goes back to, we've been investing in ALS for over 20 years, and it's taken that long to come up with the molecules to help these patients. So, an organization like ours has been around for over 330 years. We look at fighting diseases, not looking at one year, but decades of research to hopefully find medications that will help patients. So, it takes an organization that is committed to the space."

#MTPA #RareDisease #RareDiseaseAwareness #ALS #EndALS #ALSAwareness #LouGehrigsDisease

mt-pharma-america.com

Download the transcript here

Andrea Pfeifer, Co-Founder, CEO, and Director of AC Immune, is developing vaccines for neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Unlike vaccines for infectious diseases, these vaccines target internal proteins that are misfolded and contribute to the disease. These new vaccines are active immunotherapies against the Abeta protein. Trials are showing significant progress in overcoming safety concerns and lack of strong immune response for prevention, treatment, or maintenance therapy.

Andrea elaborates, "When you speak about vaccines, you always think about infectious diseases where you have this external virus or bacteria coming in, and you develop an immune system response against this virus or this bacteria, something external. In our area, in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, we are activating the immune response of the body against an internal protein, but a misguided or misfolded protein."

"This is why it's so difficult because you have to overcome the tolerance of the immune system and tell the immune system to develop an antibody response against a pathological toxic protein, which is endogenous. This requires special technologies to have the right immune response because you want the body to make antibodies only against the pathologic or the sick proteins, the misguided proteins, and not against the healthy proteins that are part of your body."

"We believe that this vaccine, or we prefer to speak about active immunotherapy, makes the difference between the vaccine response against exogenous factors, such as viruses, and the endogenous, misguided proteins. We believe this active immunotherapy can be used in a treatment manner or for prevention. It can be used for maintenance therapy after one of these therapies, which are becoming available now, has already been used to reduce these plaques in the brain of people. This is related to a better cognitive response. So, I think we're seeing multiple applications. Of course, the reason is the advantages of these active immunotherapies."

#ACImmune #ActiveImmunotherapy #AlzheimersVaccine #ABetavaccine #Neurodegeneration #VaccineDevelopment #CNS #Alzheimers #Parkinsons

acimmune.com

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Andrea Pfeifer, Co-Founder, CEO, and Director of AC Immune, is developing vaccines for neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Unlike vaccines for infectious diseases, these vaccines target internal proteins that are misfolded and contribute to the disease. These new vaccines are active immunotherapies against the Abeta protein. Trials are showing significant progress in overcoming safety concerns and lack of strong immune response for prevention, treatment, or maintenance therapy.

Andrea elaborates, "When you speak about vaccines, you always think about infectious diseases where you have this external virus or bacteria coming in, and you develop an immune system response against this virus or this bacteria, something external. In our area, in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, we are activating the immune response of the body against an internal protein, but a misguided or misfolded protein."

"This is why it's so difficult because you have to overcome the tolerance of the immune system and tell the immune system to develop an antibody response against a pathological toxic protein, which is endogenous. This requires special technologies to have the right immune response because you want the body to make antibodies only against the pathologic or the sick proteins, the misguided proteins, and not against the healthy proteins that are part of your body."

"We believe that this vaccine, or we prefer to speak about active immunotherapy, makes the difference between the vaccine response against exogenous factors, such as viruses, and the endogenous, misguided proteins. We believe this active immunotherapy can be used in a treatment manner or for prevention. It can be used for maintenance therapy after one of these therapies, which are becoming available now, has already been used to reduce these plaques in the brain of people. This is related to a better cognitive response. So, I think we're seeing multiple applications. Of course, the reason is the advantages of these active immunotherapies."

#ACImmune #ActiveImmunotherapy #AlzheimersVaccine #ABetavaccine #Neurodegeneration #VaccineDevelopment #CNS #Alzheimers #Parkinsons

acimmune.com

Download the transcript here