Empowered Patient Podcast

Priyanka Dutta-Passecker is the CEO and Founder of Healiva, a Swiss start-up focused on innovative treatments for acute and chronic wounds. Healiva begins the process by cleaning the wound using an enzyme invented by Priyanka. Depending on the severity of the wound, autologous or allogeneic cell therapy is used to make new skin to heal the wound.

Priyanka explains, "So, to give a background for when we talk about personalized cell therapies and autologous cell therapy. We take a patient here, and from the patient, we make the patient's skin. That means that we're completely personalizing and making the skin of the patient. And this is given to extremely chronic non-healing wound patients like venous leg ulcer patients or diabetic foot ulcer patients. The skin gets integrated on their ulcer and closes the ulcer. That's one of our autologous cell therapy products called Epidex."

"We do keep the primary cells when we take the hair follicle. As you may know, hair follicles are epithelial cells that we expand, and we keep the cells. And when they come back, we can make the full skin, the epidermis differentiation, within two weeks. But generally, it takes four weeks. And it's given to the patient once it's ready within four to five days."

"So, just to elaborate on what we mean by allogeneic cell therapy. So quite different from the autologous one, in allogenic cell therapy, we are taking healthy skin cells from you and me. We expand the skin cells, and we give the skin cells to the patient. What happens is that it releases growth factors which help in the healing. And there is no rejection because, of course, the cells do not stay on the wounds of the patient."

#Healiva #WoundCare #PatientCare #SwissStartups #CellTherapy #ChronicWounds #RegenerativeMedicine #Diabetes #Healthtech

healiva.com

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Priyanka Dutta-Passecker is the CEO and Founder of Healiva, a Swiss start-up focused on innovative treatments for acute and chronic wounds. Healiva begins the process by cleaning the wound using an enzyme invented by Priyanka. Depending on the severity of the wound, autologous or allogeneic cell therapy is used to make new skin to heal the wound.

Priyanka explains, "So, to give a background for when we talk about personalized cell therapies and autologous cell therapy. We take a patient here, and from the patient, we make the patient's skin. That means that we're completely personalizing and making the skin of the patient. And this is given to extremely chronic non-healing wound patients like venous leg ulcer patients or diabetic foot ulcer patients. The skin gets integrated on their ulcer and closes the ulcer. That's one of our autologous cell therapy products called Epidex."

"We do keep the primary cells when we take the hair follicle. As you may know, hair follicles are epithelial cells that we expand, and we keep the cells. And when they come back, we can make the full skin, the epidermis differentiation, within two weeks. But generally, it takes four weeks. And it's given to the patient once it's ready within four to five days."

"So, just to elaborate on what we mean by allogeneic cell therapy. So quite different from the autologous one, in allogenic cell therapy, we are taking healthy skin cells from you and me. We expand the skin cells, and we give the skin cells to the patient. What happens is that it releases growth factors which help in the healing. And there is no rejection because, of course, the cells do not stay on the wounds of the patient."

#Healiva #WoundCare #PatientCare #SwissStartups #CellTherapy #ChronicWounds #RegenerativeMedicine #Diabetes #Healthtech

healiva.com

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Steve Kent is Chief Product Officer at Know Labs, which has developed a new sensor that uses noninvasive radiofrequency spectroscopy to measure molecules in the body. Their first target is to non-invasively measure glucose to help those with diabetes manage their conditions more effectively. As a sensor and diagnostics company, Know Labs is working to understand how its sensor and technology can be integrated with best-in-class insulin delivery systems to provide a portable, reliable, and affordable solution for a growing global audience.

Steve explains, "It's a big breakthrough as far as what you're able to measure by being able to penetrate deeper into the human body. Also, we can send up to 400,000 different frequencies through one sensor, whereas, with LEDs, as the example I gave earlier, you can only send something like three to five per LED. Then, you have to physically change out the entire sensor. With ours, that programmatic control allows us an unprecedented amount of new data through the sensor field."

"The sensor has a very sophisticated control unit in it. It's programmable. Today, we can connect it to laptops. It can be connected through a cable. It can be connected through WiFi or Bluetooth to any other companion device. Right now, it's very powerful in that we can have full programmable control over how the device works in the world and understand the scenarios that allow it to perform the best. The short answer is yes, it can connect to an iPhone or an Android, and then I think there are still questions we're looking to solve on the best possible patient experience. I could envision the data being shown on your phone. The device itself may also be able to provide you with a reading directly. There are still some questions to answer there as far as what is the best experience for our future customers."

@TheKnowLabs #KnowLabs #Diabetes #GlucoseMonitoring #MedicalDevices #DiabetesManagement #NoninvasiveGlucoseMonitoring

KnowLabs.co

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Steve Kent is Chief Product Officer at Know Labs, which has developed a new sensor that uses noninvasive radiofrequency spectroscopy to measure molecules in the body. Their first target is to non-invasively measure glucose to help those with diabetes manage their conditions more effectively. As a sensor and diagnostics company, Know Labs is working to understand how its sensor and technology can be integrated with best-in-class insulin delivery systems to provide a portable, reliable, and affordable solution for a growing global audience.

Steve explains, "It's a big breakthrough as far as what you're able to measure by being able to penetrate deeper into the human body. Also, we can send up to 400,000 different frequencies through one sensor, whereas, with LEDs, as the example I gave earlier, you can only send something like three to five per LED. Then, you have to physically change out the entire sensor. With ours, that programmatic control allows us an unprecedented amount of new data through the sensor field."

"The sensor has a very sophisticated control unit in it. It's programmable. Today, we can connect it to laptops. It can be connected through a cable. It can be connected through WiFi or Bluetooth to any other companion device. Right now, it's very powerful in that we can have full programmable control over how the device works in the world and understand the scenarios that allow it to perform the best. The short answer is yes, it can connect to an iPhone or an Android, and then I think there are still questions we're looking to solve on the best possible patient experience. I could envision the data being shown on your phone. The device itself may also be able to provide you with a reading directly. There are still some questions to answer there as far as what is the best experience for our future customers."

@TheKnowLabs #KnowLabs #Diabetes #GlucoseMonitoring #MedicalDevices #DiabetesManagement #NoninvasiveGlucoseMonitoring

KnowLabs.co

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Dr. Tony Willoughby is the CEO of Stellus Rx, which has created a model of collaboration for the physician, patient, and pharmacist to provide a more robust system to encourage medication adherence and lifestyle changes. While clinicians may prescribe a treatment plan, pharmacists are in a position to work with patients to address their specific concerns and monitor the patient for drug interactions and possible de-prescribing strategies.

Tony explains, "What our model does is it comes alongside the physician. In that moment of the last 90 seconds of the appointment. We actually have that physician connect that patient to a pharmacist that's embedded virtually in that clinic to expand the capacity of the physician. To pick up that conversation and give space to understand what the patient's belief systems are, what their questions are, how to coordinate or optimize the medication to fit the patient's belief system and the product design of their health plan or their pharmacy benefit plan."

"Anytime you increase volume, you increase complexity. Whether that's the volume of different medication types or volume of dosing, you have more complexity in that moment. And so, our targeted population is your multi-chronic condition patients. We work primarily with primary care physicians, so think about the disease states that stay aligned with their primary care physicians the longest and what disease states are dominant within the US healthcare system. So we take care of a lot of diabetic patients, multi-chronic diabetic patients, COPD, hypertension, mental health, all the things that walk in and out of a primary care practice that has a type of complexity that goes along with that patient's regimen."

#StellusRx #Pharmacy #Pharmacist #PatientCare #MedicationAdherence #ValueBasedCare #IntegratedPharmacyCare

stellusrx.com

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Dr. Tony Willoughby is the CEO of Stellus Rx, which has created a model of collaboration for the physician, patient, and pharmacist to provide a more robust system to encourage medication adherence and lifestyle changes. While clinicians may prescribe a treatment plan, pharmacists are in a position to work with patients to address their specific concerns and monitor the patient for drug interactions and possible de-prescribing strategies.

Tony explains, "What our model does is it comes alongside the physician. In that moment of the last 90 seconds of the appointment. We actually have that physician connect that patient to a pharmacist that's embedded virtually in that clinic to expand the capacity of the physician. To pick up that conversation and give space to understand what the patient's belief systems are, what their questions are, how to coordinate or optimize the medication to fit the patient's belief system and the product design of their health plan or their pharmacy benefit plan."

"Anytime you increase volume, you increase complexity. Whether that's the volume of different medication types or volume of dosing, you have more complexity in that moment. And so, our targeted population is your multi-chronic condition patients. We work primarily with primary care physicians, so think about the disease states that stay aligned with their primary care physicians the longest and what disease states are dominant within the US healthcare system. So we take care of a lot of diabetic patients, multi-chronic diabetic patients, COPD, hypertension, mental health, all the things that walk in and out of a primary care practice that has a type of complexity that goes along with that patient's regimen."

#StellusRx #Pharmacy #Pharmacist #PatientCare #MedicationAdherence #ValueBasedCare #IntegratedPharmacyCare

stellusrx.com

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Dave Hering, Chief Executive Officer and Director at Invivyd, draws on his experience with vaccines working at Pfizer and research on monoclonal antibodies to engineer targeted monoclonal antibodies to treat diseases like cancer and prevent diseases like COVID-19. Providing antibodies, particularly to immunocompromised people, overcomes the limitations of vaccines and reduces the risk of severe outcomes from diseases.

Dave elaborates, "Antibodies are made by humans. They're made in response to an antigen, a virus being introduced into the body. Frequently, the starting point for these antibodies is to take blood and serum from people infected from a disease and look for these antibodies. And so that's the starting way. We call that mining antibodies. You can get them from survivors of different diseases and then use them to generate and create antibodies that look like that."

"And so Invivyd does the same thing. We start with those. But with our technology and a partnership with a company called Adimab, we've perfected this engineering that does this affinity maturation. You can do this in yeast cells. And do it and replicate it thousands and thousands of times with minor tweaks, and see how it will perform against those viruses. And so, by running those types of experiments, you're doing more precision—making modifications and finding antibodies that now aren't just the ones that your body produces but have been optimized to neutralize the virus."

#Invivyd #COVID #COVID19 #mAbs #VVD222 #Antibodies #MonoclonalAntibodies

invivyd.com

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Dave Hering, Chief Executive Officer and Director at Invivyd, draws on his experience with vaccines working at Pfizer and research on monoclonal antibodies to engineer targeted monoclonal antibodies to treat diseases like cancer and prevent diseases like COVID-19. Providing antibodies, particularly to immunocompromised people, overcomes the limitations of vaccines and reduces the risk of severe outcomes from diseases.

Dave elaborates, "Antibodies are made by humans. They're made in response to an antigen, a virus being introduced into the body. Frequently, the starting point for these antibodies is to take blood and serum from people infected from a disease and look for these antibodies. And so that's the starting way. We call that mining antibodies. You can get them from survivors of different diseases and then use them to generate and create antibodies that look like that."

"And so Invivyd does the same thing. We start with those. But with our technology and a partnership with a company called Adimab, we've perfected this engineering that does this affinity maturation. You can do this in yeast cells. And do it and replicate it thousands and thousands of times with minor tweaks, and see how it will perform against those viruses. And so, by running those types of experiments, you're doing more precision—making modifications and finding antibodies that now aren't just the ones that your body produces but have been optimized to neutralize the virus."

#Invivyd #COVID #COVID19 #mAbs #VVD222 #Antibodies #MonoclonalAntibodies

invivyd.com

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Luká Yancopoulos is CEO of Grapevine Technologies, a COVID-inspired company determined to increase resilience in the supply chain for healthcare supplies. Disrupting the current network of manufacturers, importers, and distributors, Grapevine is connecting suppliers directly to end users. They aim to build a more resilient network of suppliers, eliminate waste and unnecessary costs for medical providers, and reduce patient charges.

Luká explains, "Not a lot has changed in the healthcare space regarding logistics and supply chain in my lifetime. So, getting things to change and getting things to budge is definitely difficult in nature. But our primary business innovation is that we seamlessly connect a data-driven network of primary suppliers directly to healthcare practices."

"When I say that Grapevine is connecting this data-driven network of primary suppliers, we're using the data made publicly available by the United States government to find actual importers or manufacturers of the medical supplies and find the companies that sell to McKesson, Henry Schein, Cardinal Health, and Medline. And we basically onboard those primary suppliers, those importers, upstream of the middleman, McKesson, and these big dinosaur distributors. And we connect those importers directly to end users."

"There's a lot that incurs additional costs between the importer and the end user when they purchase from McKesson. They have to move it to McKesson's warehouse. They then pay the McKesson labor staff. They pay the account manager. And by bypassing the middleman, you bypass with him his inefficiencies, his markups. And at Grapevine, we can offer the same products that these healthcare practices already buy at an average of 62% lower prices, which is a significant saving that can be carried forward to patients and reduce the financial burden of healthcare costs."

#GrapevineTechnologies #SupplyChain #MedicalSupplies #MedicalDevices #Healthcare #CostReduction #SupplyShortages

go-grapevine.com

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Luká Yancopoulos is CEO of Grapevine Technologies, a COVID-inspired company determined to increase resilience in the supply chain for healthcare supplies. Disrupting the current network of manufacturers, importers, and distributors, Grapevine is connecting suppliers directly to end users. They aim to build a more resilient network of suppliers, eliminate waste and unnecessary costs for medical providers, and reduce patient charges.

Luká explains, "Not a lot has changed in the healthcare space regarding logistics and supply chain in my lifetime. So, getting things to change and getting things to budge is definitely difficult in nature. But our primary business innovation is that we seamlessly connect a data-driven network of primary suppliers directly to healthcare practices."

"When I say that Grapevine is connecting this data-driven network of primary suppliers, we're using the data made publicly available by the United States government to find actual importers or manufacturers of the medical supplies and find the companies that sell to McKesson, Henry Schein, Cardinal Health, and Medline. And we basically onboard those primary suppliers, those importers, upstream of the middleman, McKesson, and these big dinosaur distributors. And we connect those importers directly to end users."

"There's a lot that incurs additional costs between the importer and the end user when they purchase from McKesson. They have to move it to McKesson's warehouse. They then pay the McKesson labor staff. They pay the account manager. And by bypassing the middleman, you bypass with him his inefficiencies, his markups. And at Grapevine, we can offer the same products that these healthcare practices already buy at an average of 62% lower prices, which is a significant saving that can be carried forward to patients and reduce the financial burden of healthcare costs."

#GrapevineTechnologies #SupplyChain #MedicalSupplies #MedicalDevices #Healthcare #CostReduction #SupplyShortages

go-grapevine.com

Download the transcript here