Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Adam Kaplin is the Chief Scientific Officer of MyMD Pharmaceuticals which is developing a drug that gets to the cause of inflammation. Since chronic inflammation is a factor in pathological aging, managing inflammation shows opportunities for slowing aging. Their lead drug MyMD-1 is a TNF-a inhibitor that can cross the blood-brain barrier and treat the brain where other anti-TNF-a treatments do not.

Adam explains, "By delaying aging, what I mean is they not only lived longer, but they didn't lose their function. So, they retained their strength and their cognition. Because if we were only developing a drug that would just allow us all to get older and demented, that wouldn't be good for the economy, good for our personal health, good for anybody. So really, what we're excited about is the prospect of actually slowing the aging process and extending the healthy portion of our lifespans."

"So, aging probably is going to end up being the result of two primary processes. One is inflammation, and that is the product of having an immune system which is all set up to fight off infection. And not just fight off infection -- it turns out, inflammation is also a part of how we develop."

"The second most important thing I think is that these drugs, the anti-TNF-a treatments like HUMIRA, do not have any benefit for the brain. I mean, they can cause things that look like MS, but they certainly have no benefit for CNS inflammatory conditions. And among those are MS, lupus, but also dementias. Alzheimer's now has been implicated to have inflammation involved. So, crossing over the blood-brain barrier's a big deal. It's orally available. Additionally, all the other TNF-a inhibitors have to be taken by a needle in some way, injection or infusion."

@MyMDPharma #Health #Medical #Aging #Lifespan #Sarcopenia #Immunology #Immunesystem #Inflammation #Cytokines #CytokineStorm #TNFa #BloodBrainBarrier

MyMD.com

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Dr. Adam Kaplin is the Chief Scientific Officer of MyMD Pharmaceuticals which is developing a drug that gets to the cause of inflammation. Since chronic inflammation is a factor in pathological aging, managing inflammation shows opportunities for slowing aging. Their lead drug MyMD-1 is a TNF-a inhibitor that can cross the blood-brain barrier and treat the brain where other anti-TNF-a treatments do not.

Adam explains, "By delaying aging, what I mean is they not only lived longer, but they didn't lose their function. So, they retained their strength and their cognition. Because if we were only developing a drug that would just allow us all to get older and demented, that wouldn't be good for the economy, good for our personal health, good for anybody. So really, what we're excited about is the prospect of actually slowing the aging process and extending the healthy portion of our lifespans."

"So, aging probably is going to end up being the result of two primary processes. One is inflammation, and that is the product of having an immune system which is all set up to fight off infection. And not just fight off infection -- it turns out, inflammation is also a part of how we develop."

"The second most important thing I think is that these drugs, the anti-TNF-a treatments like HUMIRA, do not have any benefit for the brain. I mean, they can cause things that look like MS, but they certainly have no benefit for CNS inflammatory conditions. And among those are MS, lupus, but also dementias. Alzheimer's now has been implicated to have inflammation involved. So, crossing over the blood-brain barrier's a big deal. It's orally available. Additionally, all the other TNF-a inhibitors have to be taken by a needle in some way, injection or infusion."

@MyMDPharma #Health #Medical #Aging #Lifespan #Sarcopenia #Immunology #Immunesystem #Inflammation #Cytokines #CytokineStorm #TNFa #BloodBrainBarrier

MyMD.com

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Dr. Jens Bjørheim is the Chief Medical Officer at Ultimovacs which is taking advantage of the environment for R&D in the science around cancer vaccines in the Oslo region of Norway. Ultimovacs is working with peptide vaccines and long peptides. These peptides will drive for a specific subgroup of immune cells called the CD4 cells, or the helper cells, which coordinate the immune attack against infection and cancer.

Jens explains, "In some patients, they do not have the sufficient number or repertoire of immune cells that are needed to kill off the whole tumor. And we believe that adding T-cells or immune cells that can recognize specific things in the tumors, like in our case, an enzyme called telomerase, can benefit the patients in the future. So the checkpoint inhibitors on one side, they allow the immune system to kill off the cancer. On the other side, the immune system sometimes needs more help. There need to be more T-cells and more differentiation among the T-cells to really cure people from cancer."

"In our vaccine, we have sequences from an enzyme called telomerase. Why do we target telomerase? Well, in all cancers, they need to have a strategy for eternal cell division, and 85% to 90% of all cancers have turned on this enzyme, telomerase, which allows them, at least in theory, to divide forever. So this is an essential enzyme for the tumor cells. They cannot turn off this enzyme because if they do so, they cannot divide anymore, so we are targeting one of the core and essential features of the cancer."

@Ultimovacs #Ultimovacs #Telomerase #Immunotherapy #CD4Cells #CancerVaccine #Cancer #CheckpointInhibitor

Ultimovacs.com

Listen to the podcast here

Dr. Jens Bjørheim is the Chief Medical Officer at Ultimovacs which is taking advantage of the environment for R&D in the science around cancer vaccines in the Oslo region of Norway. Ultimovacs is working with peptide vaccines and long peptides. These peptides will drive for a specific subgroup of immune cells called the CD4 cells, or the helper cells, which coordinate the immune attack against infection and cancer.

Jens explains, "In some patients, they do not have the sufficient number or repertoire of immune cells that are needed to kill off the whole tumor. And we believe that adding T-cells or immune cells that can recognize specific things in the tumors, like in our case, an enzyme called telomerase, can benefit the patients in the future. So the checkpoint inhibitors on one side, they allow the immune system to kill off the cancer. On the other side, the immune system sometimes needs more help. There need to be more T-cells and more differentiation among the T-cells to really cure people from cancer."

"In our vaccine, we have sequences from an enzyme called telomerase. Why do we target telomerase? Well, in all cancers, they need to have a strategy for eternal cell division, and 85% to 90% of all cancers have turned on this enzyme, telomerase, which allows them, at least in theory, to divide forever. So this is an essential enzyme for the tumor cells. They cannot turn off this enzyme because if they do so, they cannot divide anymore, so we are targeting one of the core and essential features of the cancer."

@Ultimovacs #Ultimovacs #Telomerase #Immunotherapy #CD4Cells #CancerVaccine #Cancer #CheckpointInhibitor

Ultimovacs.com

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Anthony Capone is President of DocGo and brings his background in computational learning theory and artificial intelligence to the world of mobile medical solutions. By creating a robust routing and dispatch system integrated with first responders and up-trained lower-cost healthcare providers, DocGo is able to treat patients in emergency situations as well as provide on-site and at-home comprehensive healthcare.

Anthony explains, "Just in the past couple of years, the acceptance in a community for point-of-care tests for COVID really changed the landscape. However, COVID is one thing. The key component is that now people are more receptive to that idea, and there's a lot more investment from them going in. So things where you normally would have to drive to a lab and have to wait a couple of days to get your results, you can now do a point-of-care test right then and there. So if you combine that together with a remote diagnostic system, then what you end up getting is care that might have taken three episodes, three encounters, can be done in one encounter."

"Well, one of the biggest ways to reduce that cost of care for them is to keep the patients out of the emergency room. And who can keep them out of the emergency room? Well, it's a rare person who can actually go and have somebody who can respond rapidly to an urgent care visit and prevent that patient from actually going into the emergency room, and we're in that position. So physicians want to work with us, especially those that are on some sort of capitated type risk-based arrangement like an ACO."

#DocGo #Ambulnz #DocGoMobileHealth #MobileTesting #MobileHealthcare #HealthcareAI #InnovationInHealthcare #AI #HealthcareTechnology

DocGo.com

Listen to the podcast here

Anthony Capone is President of DocGo and brings his background in computational learning theory and artificial intelligence to the world of mobile medical solutions. By creating a robust routing and dispatch system integrated with first responders and up-trained lower-cost healthcare providers, DocGo is able to treat patients in emergency situations as well as provide on-site and at-home comprehensive healthcare.

Anthony explains, "Just in the past couple of years, the acceptance in a community for point-of-care tests for COVID really changed the landscape. However, COVID is one thing. The key component is that now people are more receptive to that idea, and there's a lot more investment from them going in. So things where you normally would have to drive to a lab and have to wait a couple of days to get your results, you can now do a point-of-care test right then and there. So if you combine that together with a remote diagnostic system, then what you end up getting is care that might have taken three episodes, three encounters, can be done in one encounter."

"Well, one of the biggest ways to reduce that cost of care for them is to keep the patients out of the emergency room. And who can keep them out of the emergency room? Well, it's a rare person who can actually go and have somebody who can respond rapidly to an urgent care visit and prevent that patient from actually going into the emergency room, and we're in that position. So physicians want to work with us, especially those that are on some sort of capitated type risk-based arrangement like an ACO."

#DocGo #Ambulnz #DocGoMobileHealth #MobileTesting #MobileHealthcare #HealthcareAI #InnovationInHealthcare #AI #HealthcareTechnology

DocGo.com

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Anish Sebastian is the CEO and Co-Founder of Babyscripts, which is focused on improving prenatal and postpartum care for mothers and their newborns. Using remote monitoring and a robust digital environment, low and high-risk pregnancies are supported with virtual care as well as in-office appointments. Babyscripts works with care teams, providers, healthcare providers, OBGYNs, nurse midwives, nurses, and the whole care continuum to improve access to and quality of care.

Anish explains, "So this was sort of our moment to provide the market with tools that could really help improve access. One of the things that we do is remote patient monitoring for blood pressure for high and low-risk moms. And that is such an important and pivotal thing in prenatal and postpartum care. So providers across the nation, a lot of our practices that we work with said, Hey, Babyscripts, how can we work together to still give good quality care and maintain access, but handle some of the shortages that we knew were going to come."

"Highly compliant, fully engaged patient, in the old way of doing things, would show up to an office appointment 12 to 14 times. So, over the course of that pregnancy, we're looking at 12 to 14 data points, blood pressure data points."

"Compare that to us collecting that data from home. We're shipping them a blood pressure cuff, it's Bluetooth enabled, and they can take it, in certain instances, every single day. Or at least every single week. So there is a much higher order of magnitude difference of data that we're collecting, and also creating more and more real-time instances to identify risk and ultimately intervene. We're catching things quicker and allowing care teams to intervene quicker."

@Babyscripts #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #MaternalHealth #RemoteMonitoring #Prenatal #Startup

Babyscripts.com

Listen to the podcast here

Anish Sebastian is the CEO and Co-Founder of Babyscripts, which is focused on improving prenatal and postpartum care for mothers and their newborns. Using remote monitoring and a robust digital environment, low and high-risk pregnancies are supported with virtual care as well as in-office appointments. Babyscripts works with care teams, providers, healthcare providers, OBGYNs, nurse midwives, nurses, and the whole care continuum to improve access to and quality of care.

Anish explains, "So this was sort of our moment to provide the market with tools that could really help improve access. One of the things that we do is remote patient monitoring for blood pressure for high and low-risk moms. And that is such an important and pivotal thing in prenatal and postpartum care. So providers across the nation, a lot of our practices that we work with said, Hey, Babyscripts, how can we work together to still give good quality care and maintain access, but handle some of the shortages that we knew were going to come."

"Highly compliant, fully engaged patient, in the old way of doing things, would show up to an office appointment 12 to 14 times. So, over the course of that pregnancy, we're looking at 12 to 14 data points, blood pressure data points."

"Compare that to us collecting that data from home. We're shipping them a blood pressure cuff, it's Bluetooth enabled, and they can take it, in certain instances, every single day. Or at least every single week. So there is a much higher order of magnitude difference of data that we're collecting, and also creating more and more real-time instances to identify risk and ultimately intervene. We're catching things quicker and allowing care teams to intervene quicker."

@Babyscripts #DigitalHealth #Healthcare #MaternalHealth #RemoteMonitoring #Prenatal #Startup

Babyscripts.com

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Lynn Carroll is the Chief Operating Officer at HSBlox and is in the business of helping payers and providers move from a fee-for-service to a value-based model. One of the critical challenges in scaling these solutions so that they can work with legacy systems and provide data and performance metrics to determine and improve outcomes in the value-based arena.

Lynn explains, "So, as we think about the overall landscape of healthcare that traditionally has been on a fee-for-service basis, the legacy systems on both the payer and provider sides have been geared toward billing and transactional mechanisms. Submitting claims and getting paid based upon those claims is a very fragmented approach."

"And what we have noticed is that the ability to operationalize these value-based programs with the legacy system is a challenge. Both hierarchically in terms of which providers are participating, what population is assigned, but also in the funding pool management, whether they're from employers, from commercial payers, from Medicare Advantage, or state programs, Medicaid, children's health. Keeping the funding pools straight, managing the associated risk corridors, and then ultimately reporting performance is not how the traditional systems have been geared in the past."

@Blox_HS #communityhealth #healthcare #healthequity #homehealthcare #managedcare #SDoH #valuebasedadministration #VBC #valuebasedcare

HSBlox.com

Listen to the podcast here

Lynn Carroll is the Chief Operating Officer at HSBlox and is in the business of helping payers and providers move from a fee-for-service to a value-based model. One of the critical challenges in scaling these solutions so that they can work with legacy systems and provide data and performance metrics to determine and improve outcomes in the value-based arena.

Lynn explains, "So, as we think about the overall landscape of healthcare that traditionally has been on a fee-for-service basis, the legacy systems on both the payer and provider sides have been geared toward billing and transactional mechanisms. Submitting claims and getting paid based upon those claims is a very fragmented approach."

"And what we have noticed is that the ability to operationalize these value-based programs with the legacy system is a challenge. Both hierarchically in terms of which providers are participating, what population is assigned, but also in the funding pool management, whether they're from employers, from commercial payers, from Medicare Advantage, or state programs, Medicaid, children's health. Keeping the funding pools straight, managing the associated risk corridors, and then ultimately reporting performance is not how the traditional systems have been geared in the past."

@Blox_HS #communityhealth #healthcare #healthequity #homehealthcare #managedcare #SDoH #valuebasedadministration #VBC #valuebasedcare

HSBlox.com

Download the transcript here