Empowered Patient Podcast

Scott Gray is the President and CEO of Clincierge and supporting the activities related to the observation of Rare Disease Day on February 28. Clincierge is focused on coordinating logistical, financial, caregiving, and translation services to facilitate participation in clinical trials by patients with rare diseases. With a personalized, local approach, they support sponsors of research in the recruitment and retention of patients by removing obstacles and reducing stress.

Scott explains, "The intent is to provide an energy and a focal point that enables rare disease advocacy work to progress on the local, national, and international levels. The intent of improving access to treatment and medical representation for the many individuals who struggle with a rare disease and include their families who support and care for them. Since it was created in 2008, Rare Disease Day has played a critical part in building an international rare disease community that is multi-disease, global, and diverse but truly united in its purpose of expanding access for these unique patients."

"From what we've observed in the rare disease space, there hasn't been a great effect by technology. Monitoring can happen, but a lot of the observational reviews that have to happen during the visit are only able to happen with going to the site. During the pandemic, as you mentioned, we were asked in some instances to move the healthcare provider to the home of the rare disease patient so that they didn't have to travel, especially if it was a patient who was immunocompromised. And if that wasn't possible, there were also instances where the sponsor budgeted for private jet travel so that an immunocompromised patient could visit the site."

@Clincierge #RareDiseaseDay #ShowYourStripes #RareDiseases #ClinicalTrials

clincierge.com

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Scott Gray is the President and CEO of Clincierge and supporting the activities related to the observation of Rare Disease Day on February 28. Clincierge is focused on coordinating logistical, financial, caregiving, and translation services to facilitate participation in clinical trials by patients with rare diseases. With a personalized, local approach, they support sponsors of research in the recruitment and retention of patients by removing obstacles and reducing stress.

Scott explains, "The intent is to provide an energy and a focal point that enables rare disease advocacy work to progress on the local, national, and international levels. The intent of improving access to treatment and medical representation for the many individuals who struggle with a rare disease and include their families who support and care for them. Since it was created in 2008, Rare Disease Day has played a critical part in building an international rare disease community that is multi-disease, global, and diverse but truly united in its purpose of expanding access for these unique patients."

"From what we've observed in the rare disease space, there hasn't been a great effect by technology. Monitoring can happen, but a lot of the observational reviews that have to happen during the visit are only able to happen with going to the site. During the pandemic, as you mentioned, we were asked in some instances to move the healthcare provider to the home of the rare disease patient so that they didn't have to travel, especially if it was a patient who was immunocompromised. And if that wasn't possible, there were also instances where the sponsor budgeted for private jet travel so that an immunocompromised patient could visit the site."

@Clincierge #RareDiseaseDay #ShowYourStripes #RareDiseases #ClinicalTrials

clincierge.com

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Sandy Macrae, CEO of Sangamo Therapeutics, talks about the promise and limitations of genomic medicine to find the most effective and affordable treatments for patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Their CAR-Treg cell therapy platform allows T cells to be tracked throughout the body and activated to release chemicals and signals to reduce inflammation. Small molecule oral pills will always be used to treat diseases and vaccines to prevent them. The goal of genomic medicine is to eradicate the disease.

Sandy explains, "We co-opted what's a very natural process and attached a whole series of things to it. The zinc finger gets us to the right bit of the DNA, and then we can either cut the DNA. We can turn it down, turn it off, replace a base, or replace a chunk of it. That's the advantage of the zinc fingers. It's natural. It's small. It's easily delivered and has a whole range of functions that allows us to choose the right tool for the right disease."

"But there's going to be a growing space for diseases where there is a clear genetic influence or genetic participation in the disease, where a simple injection of a virus that takes the editing technology to the DNA can change the patient's course of their disease. I'm thinking of Sickle Cell Disease, where patients who were going into the hospital 10, 12, or 15 times a year are now not having any of those painful episodes. I'm thinking of Hemophilia, where they used to have to inject two or three times a week and have bleeding episodes, and they can now walk free and not worry about their bleeding."

"But really, the excitement within Sangamo is the next-generation projects, the Tregs that we just spoke about, and a whole platform of brain-active conscription factors that we're working on."

@SangamoTx #GenomicMedicine #GeneTherapy #CellTherapy #ZincFingers #Tregs #Tcells

sangamo.com

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Sandy Macrae, CEO of Sangamo Therapeutics, talks about the promise and limitations of genomic medicine to find the most effective and affordable treatments for patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Their CAR-Treg cell therapy platform allows T cells to be tracked throughout the body and activated to release chemicals and signals to reduce inflammation. Small molecule oral pills will always be used to treat diseases and vaccines to prevent them. The goal of genomic medicine is to eradicate the disease.

Sandy explains, "We co-opted what's a very natural process and attached a whole series of things to it. The zinc finger gets us to the right bit of the DNA, and then we can either cut the DNA. We can turn it down, turn it off, replace a base, or replace a chunk of it. That's the advantage of the zinc fingers. It's natural. It's small. It's easily delivered and has a whole range of functions that allows us to choose the right tool for the right disease."

"But there's going to be a growing space for diseases where there is a clear genetic influence or genetic participation in the disease, where a simple injection of a virus that takes the editing technology to the DNA can change the patient's course of their disease. I'm thinking of Sickle Cell Disease, where patients who were going into the hospital 10, 12, or 15 times a year are now not having any of those painful episodes. I'm thinking of Hemophilia, where they used to have to inject two or three times a week and have bleeding episodes, and they can now walk free and not worry about their bleeding."

"But really, the excitement within Sangamo is the next-generation projects, the Tregs that we just spoke about, and a whole platform of brain-active conscription factors that we're working on."

@SangamoTx #GenomicMedicine #GeneTherapy #CellTherapy #ZincFingers #Tregs #Tcells

sangamo.com

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Professor Arik Eisenkraft is the VP of Clinical and Regulation at Biobeat, which has developed a short-term disposable chest patch that collects and transmits vital signs data to a cloud-based platform. They have also developed a rechargeable wrist device that collects the same kind of data and is designed for long-term use at home, in care centers, or for clinical trials. Using the optical technique photoplethysmography, they collect reflected light from the tissue not using the light that goes through the tissue, allowing for these form factors.

Arik explains, "I can tell you that specifically at Biobeat, we had several very exciting clinical studies in which, for example, we managed to show that we can detect unique patterns of flu two days before people started to feel ill. That's amazing because now it can help you direct treatments or use all kinds of measures like isolation, as we saw early in the COVID pandemic."

"Biobeat is using an optical method, photoplethysmography, or PPG, which is widely used in all the past oximeters. I think that everyone now knows that because of COVID. We developed our own in-house sensor and the algorithms that are related to it. With most devices, you can measure pulse and blood oxygen saturation."

"With our device, we get a much stronger and clean signal. And by that, we can now track not only these two parameters but actually a total of 13 different parameters, including cuffless blood pressure, cardiac output, stroke volume, respiratory rate, temperature, all the five basic parameters that nurses have to collect wherever the patient is, whether in the hospital or the clinic or at home."

@BiobeatT #RemotePatientMonitoring #RPM #MedicalDevice #Wearables #AI #Cardio #Noninvasive #HospitalatHome #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine #Healthcare #Medtech #PatientExperience #BloodPressure #CardiacOutput #StrokeVolume #HealthcareInnovation #Health #PersonalizedMedicine #PrecisionMedicine

bio-beat.com

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Professor Arik Eisenkraft is the VP of Clinical and Regulation at Biobeat, which has developed a short-term disposable chest patch that collects and transmits vital signs data to a cloud-based platform. They have also developed a rechargeable wrist device that collects the same kind of data and is designed for long-term use at home, in care centers, or for clinical trials. Using the optical technique photoplethysmography, they collect reflected light from the tissue not using the light that goes through the tissue, allowing for these form factors.

Arik explains, "I can tell you that specifically at Biobeat, we had several very exciting clinical studies in which, for example, we managed to show that we can detect unique patterns of flu two days before people started to feel ill. That's amazing because now it can help you direct treatments or use all kinds of measures like isolation, as we saw early in the COVID pandemic."

"Biobeat is using an optical method, photoplethysmography, or PPG, which is widely used in all the past oximeters. I think that everyone now knows that because of COVID. We developed our own in-house sensor and the algorithms that are related to it. With most devices, you can measure pulse and blood oxygen saturation."

"With our device, we get a much stronger and clean signal. And by that, we can now track not only these two parameters but actually a total of 13 different parameters, including cuffless blood pressure, cardiac output, stroke volume, respiratory rate, temperature, all the five basic parameters that nurses have to collect wherever the patient is, whether in the hospital or in the clinic or at home."

@BiobeatT #RemotePatientMonitoring #RPM #MedicalDevice #Wearables #AI #Cardio #Noninvasive #HospitalatHome #DigitalHealth #Telemedicine #Healthcare #Medtech #PatientExperience #BloodPressure #CardiacOutput #StrokeVolume #HealthcareInnovation #Health #PersonalizedMedicine #PrecisionMedicine

bio-beat.com

Download the transcript here

Dr. Rakesh Suri, President and Chief Medical Officer at Fountain Life, reflects on the impact COVID has had on our understanding that, as a society, we are only as safe as the least protected member in our global community. He emphasizes the need to diagnose pre-symptomatic and symptomatic conditions and the long-term value of advanced diagnostics to address individual and population health needs.

Rakesh elaborates, "It's leveraging the latest science, shortening the preclinical latency gap between new diagnostic tests, which we know are scientifically impactful. Yet, it takes 10 to 15 years to become embedded in mainstream clinical practice. Fast-forwarding those things, curating them in a thoughtful manner so that not everybody gets the same suite of tests, but they're actually tailored for age, gender, and other types of, what we say, comorbidities or other sorts of things that are going on in people's lives."

"We understand, through our decades of research, that fixing the heart valve, if it's leaking, it's way too late. The heart never recovers despite the fact that they now have a normal heart valve. The same is true with any disease process in the body. If we wait until a disease manifests itself symptomatically, with symptoms, whether it's a heart attack or metastatic cancer or dementia or osteoarthritis, debilitating or arthritic conditions, we know that we oftentimes can never restore a normal human performance and normal human healthspan."

#FountainLife #PreventativeMedicine #PrecisionMedicine #EarlyDetection #FunctionalHealth #ProactiveCare #Healthcare #DiseasePrevention #Longevity #Healthspan

FountainLife.com

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Dr. Rakesh Suri, President and Chief Medical Officer at Fountain Life, reflects on the impact COVID has had on our understanding that, as a society, we are only as safe as the least protected member in our global community. He emphasizes the need to diagnose pre-symptomatic and symptomatic conditions and the long-term value of advanced diagnostics to address individual and population health needs.

Rakesh elaborates, "It's leveraging the latest science, shortening the preclinical latency gap between new diagnostic tests, which we know are scientifically impactful. Yet, it takes 10 to 15 years to become embedded in mainstream clinical practice. Fast-forwarding those things, curating them in a thoughtful manner so that not everybody gets the same suite of tests, but they're actually tailored for age, gender, and other types of, what we say, comorbidities or other sorts of things that are going on in people's lives."

"We understand, through our decades of research, that fixing the heart valve, if it's leaking, it's way too late. The heart never recovers despite the fact that they now have a normal heart valve. The same is true with any disease process in the body. If we wait until a disease manifests itself symptomatically, with symptoms, whether it's a heart attack or metastatic cancer or dementia or osteoarthritis, debilitating or arthritic conditions, we know that we oftentimes can never restore a normal human performance and normal human healthspan."

#FountainLife #PreventativeMedicine #PrecisionMedicine #EarlyDetection #FunctionalHealth #ProactiveCare #Healthcare #DiseasePrevention #Longevity #Healthspan

FountainLife.com

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Anat Cohen-Dayag is the President and CEO of Compugen, which uses its computational discovery platform to identify new drug targets allowing them to develop new treatments based on these new targets. While most immunotherapies are based on proteins PD-1 or PD-L1, Compugen has discovered two other proteins involved in stimulating the immune system response against cancer.

Anat elaborates, "In 2009, we discovered the protein called TIGIT. We discovered it computationally, and we sent it to publication back-to-back with Genentech. And this is the protein that is being now developed by Compugen and by others, Genentech being the leader in this field with phase three studies in the clinic. Their phase two data showed improvement for patients with non-small cell cancer."

"Following this TIGIT discovery, we decided that we're not going to compete in the TIGIT space, per se, but that we would like to focus the company on a different type of family of proteins, and we discovered PVRIG. And PVRIG is, again, a protein that we believe has a role in stimulating the immune system response against the cancer. But it is not working only alone. It is a pathway that is working in parallel and in complement to TIGIT and to PD-1."

#Compugen #TIGIT #PVRIG #ImmunoOncology #OvarianCancer #ColonCancer #MachineLearning #ML

cgen.com

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Anat Cohen-Dayag is the President and CEO of Compugen, which uses its computational discovery platform to identify new drug targets allowing them to develop new treatments based on these new targets. While most immunotherapies are based on proteins PD-1 or PD-L1, Compugen has discovered two other proteins involved in stimulating the immune system response against cancer.

Anat elaborates, "In 2009, we discovered the protein called TIGIT. We discovered it computationally, and we sent it to publication back-to-back with Genentech. And this is the protein that is being now developed by Compugen and by others, Genentech being the leader in this field with phase three studies in the clinic. Their phase two data showed improvement for patients with non-small cell cancer."

"Following this TIGIT discovery, we decided that we're not going to compete in the TIGIT space, per se, but that we would like to focus the company on a different type of family of proteins, and we discovered PVRIG. And PVRIG is, again, a protein that we believe has a role in stimulating the immune system response against the cancer. But it is not working only alone. It is a pathway that is working in parallel and in complement to TIGIT and to PD-1."

#Compugen #TIGIT #PVRIG #ImmunoOncology #OvarianCancer #ColonCancer #MachineLearning #ML

cgen.com

Download the transcript here