Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Jessica Grossman is the CEO of an early stage biotech, IgGenix, the world leader in discovering and characterizing IgE antibodies which have been identified as the cause of allergies. With an initial focus on peanut allergy, IgGenix is developing a plan to use a subcutaneous injection to block specific allergic reactions immediately.

Jessica explains, "At IgGenix, what we do is start with whole blood donations from allergic donors. And we take that blood and isolate out the single B cells that are making the IgE antibodies. We get those IgE antibodies, and we transform them into an IgG antibody that's actually protective. And I'll use again, peanut as an example. That's our lead program, which we're the furthest ahead. We have done some pre-clinical work, some animal studies, which look remarkably promising, and I'm excited about it. But what we envision our therapy looking like is an antibody therapeutic that would be given to an individual, and the antibody would immediately protect them from any accidental exposure."

"So we isolate these very rare B cells that produce IgE antibodies, and they're about 0.05% of the circulating blood cells. Because the IgE antibodies are so rare, they're also extremely potent, meaning they have a very high affinity. And when you are allergic, they seek out the food that you're allergic to and cause this immediate reaction. What we're doing is taking those very potent IgE antibodies, converting them to IgG antibodies to act as blockers."

#IgGenix #FoodAllergyResearch #AllergicDisease #BCells #AntibodyTherapeutics #AirborneAllergies #EnvironmentalAllergies #SustainableInnovation #WomenInSTEM #Biotech

IgGenix.com

Listen to the podcast here

Dr. Jessica Grossman is the CEO of an early stage biotech, IgGenix, the world leader in discovering and characterizing IgE antibodies which have been identified as the cause of allergies. With an initial focus on peanut allergy, IgGenix is developing a plan to use a subcutaneous injection to block specific allergic reactions immediately.

Jessica explains, "At IgGenix, what we do is start with whole blood donations from allergic donors. And we take that blood and isolate out the single B cells that are making the IgE antibodies. We get those IgE antibodies, and we transform them into an IgG antibody that's actually protective. And I'll use again, peanut as an example. That's our lead program, which we're the furthest ahead. We have done some pre-clinical work, some animal studies, which look remarkably promising, and I'm excited about it. But what we envision our therapy looking like is an antibody therapeutic that would be given to an individual, and the antibody would immediately protect them from any accidental exposure."

"So we isolate these very rare B cells that produce IgE antibodies, and they're about 0.05% of the circulating blood cells. Because the IgE antibodies are so rare, they're also extremely potent, meaning they have a very high affinity. And when you are allergic, they seek out the food that you're allergic to and cause this immediate reaction. What we're doing is taking those very potent IgE antibodies, converting them to IgG antibodies to act as blockers."

#IgGenix #FoodAllergyResearch #AllergicDisease #BCells #AntibodyTherapeutics #AirborneAllergies #EnvironmentalAllergies #SustainableInnovation #WomenInSTEM #Biotech

IgGenix.com

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Bret Scholtes is the President and CEO of Guardion Health Sciences and is in the business of bringing medical foods and dietary supplements to the market. Formulating products with ingredients with solid science behind them, Guardion is also focused on creating good-tasting products that people want to continue to use for good health.

Bret explains, "So, for example, we have an omega-3 gel bite that we'd recently formulated and started selling. There are a tremendous number of studies that are done on omega-3s. We put it in a format that's a little bit different than a soft gel. We'll be doing clinical work to basically prove the efficacy of not only omega-3 but also, what it looks like in that gel bite format, and how that would compare to other options that a consumer would have."

"We think that there's the opportunity to look at the role that calcium plays in order for a person to benefit, from a bone perspective. We think that omega-3s are an excellent opportunity for someone to get essential nutrients that their body doesn't produce, which are proven for cognitive health and bone health. So for us, it's about living a more vibrant and active life, which is why we sell our products. And for us, it's about allowing the body to get the nutrients that it needs in sufficient form to continue to live that life as long as possible."

@GuardionHealth #MedicalFood #ClinicalNutrition #Omega3 #Nutrition

guardionhealth.com

Listen to the podcast here

Bret Scholtes is the President and CEO of Guardion Health Sciences and is in the business of bringing medical foods and dietary supplements to the market. Formulating products with ingredients with solid science behind them, Guardion is also focused on creating good-tasting products that people want to continue to use for good health.

Bret explains, "So, for example, we have an omega-3 gel bite that we'd recently formulated and started selling. There are a tremendous number of studies that are done on omega-3s. We put it in a format that's a little bit different than a soft gel. We'll be doing clinical work to basically prove the efficacy of not only omega-3 but also, what it looks like in that gel bite format, and how that would compare to other options that a consumer would have."

"We think that there's the opportunity to look at the role that calcium plays in order for a person to benefit, from a bone perspective. We think that omega-3s are an excellent opportunity for someone to get essential nutrients that their body doesn't produce, which are proven for cognitive health and bone health. So for us, it's about living a more vibrant and active life, which is why we sell our products. And for us, it's about allowing the body to get the nutrients that it needs in sufficient form to continue to live that life as long as possible."

@GuardionHealth #MedicalFood #ClinicalNutrition #Omega3 #Nutrition

guardionhealth.com

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Robbie Hughes is the Founder and CEO of Lumeon, which is deploying its care orchestration platform to personalize the treatment plan and follow-up for patients while guiding care providers to make the right decision at the right time.

Robbie elaborates, "We decided that there was a need for a solution that would proactively coordinate care algorithmically and do so at a very low cost. Thus, you could use that system to coordinate care everywhere. What we see now from our providers and our partners is that they use it to coordinate everything from elective surgery to discharge planning to hospital-at-home and everything in between."

"I need to do all of this in real-time. What we are doing is we're combining all of these things together into a single solution, and it really allows us to do something transformative in terms of the personalized scaling of care. It's tasking the care team specifically with activities, and it's automating those, and that's engaging the patient and making them an equal participant in that care. What's critical is that this isn't just patient engagement. We're not just sending notifications out to patients saying, do this or that. It's actually using the patient engagement loop as a way of understanding what's working and what's not and then guiding the care team appropriately."

@Lumeon_ #CareOrchestration #CareAutomation #QualityImprovement #DigitalTransformation #Burnout #Productivity #ClosingCareGaps

lumeon.com

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Robbie Hughes is the Founder and CEO of Lumeon, which is deploying its care orchestration platform to personalize the treatment plan and follow-up for patients while guiding care providers to make the right decision at the right time.

Robbie elaborates, "We decided that there was a need for a solution that would proactively coordinate care algorithmically and do so at a very low cost. Thus, you could use that system to coordinate care everywhere. What we see now from our providers and our partners is that they use it to coordinate everything from elective surgery to discharge planning to hospital-at-home and everything in between."

"I need to do all of this in real-time. What we are doing is we're combining all of these things together into a single solution, and it really allows us to do something transformative in terms of the personalized scaling of care. It's tasking the care team specifically with activities, and it's automating those, and that's engaging the patient and making them an equal participant in that care. What's critical is that this isn't just patient engagement. We're not just sending notifications out to patients saying, do this or that. It's actually using the patient engagement loop as a way of understanding what's working and what's not and then guiding the care team appropriately."

@Lumeon_ #CareOrchestration #CareAutomation #QualityImprovement #DigitalTransformation #Burnout #Productivity #ClosingCareGaps

lumeon.com

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James Hammer, the Senior VP at Harmony Healthcare IT, and Dr. Colin Banas, the Chief Medical Officer at DrFirst, join me to discuss their recent partnership to accelerate the transition of care providers and payers to a digital environment. Faced with clinician burnout, organizations are even more pressed to find efficient methods to treat patients and reduce the need to struggle with outdated information systems and data silos.

Jim explains, "The farther back or historical, the older legacy applications are, the less the data is actually what's called discreet or codified. And today's EHRs, obviously require codified data to alert triggers and have to be codified to be able to interact and be interoperable with other systems. What's exciting about this relationship between DrFirst and us is they've got years of technology and the ability to look at medications, for example. And, to take literally descriptive text and convert that into codified data, meaning translate that to an NDC code, or a drug name, as well as a CIG that's required for interoperable and usable data in the EHR."

Colin elaborates, "Anytime you have the clinical team re-input data, it's tedious, but it also can introduce errors. I've been in informatics for over two decades now, and we've been talking about interoperability since the onset. I do think we've gotten a lot better, especially with solutions like Harmony's, but I still think that we have a way to go. Particularly, I would refer to semantic interoperability, which is what Jim was referring to. This is when the data not only moves from point A to B, but it arrives at endpoint B in the format that system is expecting and can be used immediately without that manual intervention that is so tedious."

@DrFirst #Healthit #Interoperability #ValueBasedCare #EHR #ClinicianBurnout #PatientOutcomes

drfirst.com

harmonyhit.com

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James Hammer, the Senior VP at Harmony Healthcare IT and Dr. Colin Banas, the Chief Medical Officer at DrFirst join me to discuss their recent partnership to accelerate the transition of care providers and payers to a digital environment. Faced with clinician burnout, organizations are even more pressed to find efficient methods to treat patients and reduce the need to struggle with outdated information systems and data silos.

Jim explains, "The farther back or historical, the older legacy applications are, the less the data is actually what's called discreet or codified. And today's EHRs, obviously require codified data to alert triggers and have to be codified to be able to interact and be interoperable with other systems. What's exciting about this relationship between DrFirst and us is they've got years of technology and the ability to look at medications, for example. And, to take literally descriptive text and convert that into codified data, meaning translate that to an NDC code, or a drug name, as well as a CIG that's required for interoperable and usable data in the EHR."

Colin elaborates, "Anytime you have the clinical team re-input data, it's tedious, but it also can introduce errors. I've been in informatics for over two decades now, and we've been talking about interoperability since the onset. I do think we've gotten a lot better, especially with solutions like Harmony's, but I still think that we have a way to go. Particularly, I would refer to semantic interoperability, which is what Jim was referring to. This is when the data not only moves from point A to B, but it arrives at endpoint B in the format that system is expecting and can be used immediately without that manual intervention that is so tedious."

@DrFirst #Healthit #Interoperability #ValueBasedCare #EHR #ClinicianBurnout #PatientOutcomes

drfirst.com

harmonyhit.com

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Rajatesh Gudibande is the Co-Founder and President of GraphWear Technologies, which has taken lessons from earlier self-monitoring blood glucose device development to come up with a patient-friendly system for continuous monitoring of glucose in people with diabetes. Using a needle-free device, this smart device is attached on the wrist, on the lower abdomen, or on the side arm.

Raj explains, "The principle of operation is fairly simple and also unique, in a way. Let's look at what is our source first. Skin is the largest organ in the human body, and it has access to interstitial fluid, which is the fluid just underneath the skin and a few layers off it, so underneath the stratum corneum. And so, if we are able to somehow put a device that can taste molecules by pulling them out a little bit just on the surface of the skin, then we can access whatever's there in the blood."

"But that requires a device that's very sensitive. So the first key principle operation is we have a sensitive material that is electronically active. It is specific to the molecules we are targeting, and then it converts the molecular information into electric signals and then transmits via Bluetooth to your phone. Think about it, it's literally an electronic tongue tasting molecules like glucose that come out. The key is the sensor sits on the surface of the skin, so there's no breaking of the skin whatsoever. Still, then there's a peripheral device that converts, stores, computes, and has the battery in it, and that then is a housing for which the device operates together as a system."

@GraphWear_Tech #GraphWearTechnologies #NotBlood #NeedleFree #Detection #Nanomaterial

graphwear.co

Listen to the podcast here

Rajatesh Gudibande is the Co-Founder and President of GraphWear Technologies, which has taken lessons from earlier self-monitoring blood glucose device development to come up with a patient-friendly system for continuous monitoring of glucose in people with diabetes. Using a needle-free device, this smart device is attached on the wrist, on the lower abdomen, or on the side arm.

Raj explains, "The principle of operation is fairly simple and also unique, in a way. Let's look at what is our source first. Skin is the largest organ in the human body, and it has access to interstitial fluid, which is the fluid just underneath the skin and a few layers off it, so underneath the stratum corneum. And so, if we are able to somehow put a device that can taste molecules by pulling them out a little bit just on the surface of the skin, then we can access whatever's there in the blood."

"But that requires a device that's very sensitive. So the first key principle operation is we have a sensitive material that is electronically active. It is specific to the molecules we are targeting, and then it converts the molecular information into electric signals and then transmits via Bluetooth to your phone. Think about it, it's literally an electronic tongue tasting molecules like glucose that come out. The key is the sensor sits on the surface of the skin, so there's no breaking of the skin whatsoever. Still, then there's a peripheral device that converts, stores, computes, and has the battery in it, and that then is a housing for which the device operates together as a system."

@GraphWear_Tech #GraphWearTechnologies #NotBlood #NeedleFree #Detection #Nanomaterial

graphwear.co

Download the transcript here