Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Dror Harats, Founder and CEO of VBL Therapeutics, talks about the limitations of current treatments for recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (rGBM), the most common and deadliest form of brain cancer in adults and the challenges in developing new treatments to combat this devastating disease. The good news is that their lead candidate, a biologic agent called VB-111, is in late-stage clinical development for rGBM and showing great promise. He discusses the unique mechanism of VB-111 that he hopes could hold the key not only to treating rGBM, but many types of cancer.

@VBL Therapeutic

#GBM. #Glioblastoma.

#BrainTumor #BrainCancer. #Cancer

VBL Therapeutics VBLRX.com

Jay Patel, Clinical Transformation Officer, SeniorLink talks about caregiver readiness and the difference a confident caregiver can make in the life of a patient or aging loved one. Primary concerns are the health of the caregiver and the social and medical support teams that give caregivers the ability to respond rapidly to changes.

@SeniorLinkInc

SeniorLink.com

Jill Gilbert, Producer, Digital Health Summit talks about new solutions that are being tested to improve medical care and outcomes. She points to challenges presented by embedded legacy systems and how digital health entrepreneurs are creatively proving that new models of care do work and can be integrated into existing solutions. From her perspective, there is a great deal of discussion about precision medicine but still a long way to go to make it a reality. Key topic for their January Digital Health Summit, in conjunction with CES in Las Vegas, is the brain.

@DHSummit

Digital Health Summit

Howard Rose, Founder and CEO, Firsthand Technology has 20 years of experience finding therapeutic uses of Virtual Reality (VR) for healthcare. Howard talks about how technologies have become friendlier, faster, more mobile and less costly to allow for VR applications to be offered to address a range of types of pain and anxiety and reduce the need for drugs.

@FirsthandTech

Firsthand Technology

Heidi Rataj is an award-winning documentary producer and director and a caregiver for her mom. Heidi talks about her own fear of aging and the search for a new narrative for seniors as they age. While we need to be respectful of all journeys, activating seniors to allow them to accomplish goals is key to a healthier individual and society. She also points out how digital technology plays a role in coordinating care and enabling people to age in place.

@UCSDHealthyAging

Reflect PBS Mini-Series

Barry McDonogh, Senior Vice President, Sales and Business Development, TruTag Technologies talks about their new on-dose microtags and authentication process that insures pharmaceutical brand integrity and safety for the consumer. This technology adds minimal cost to drug manufacturing and is a strong deterrent to counterfeit drugs coming into the market.

@TruTags

#BIO17

TruTags.com

Judith Sheft, Associate Vice President for Technology and Enterprise Development, New Jersey Innovation Institute talks about how a small state like New Jersey is working with public and private universities to bring new technology to the healthcare market. With a background in chip technology, Judith is particularly interested in how digital health is changing the experience of patients as well as how doctors are facing the challenge of using new methods to diagnose and treat patients.

@NewJerseyII

New Jersey Innovation Institute

#BIO2017

A.J. Michaels is a seniors real estate specialist and he shares insights about how seniors and almost seniors are thinking about aging in place, downsizing, and how decisions about housing are so often put off until a crisis hits. He also points out some helpful options for retro-fitting a home to address concerns about falls, mobility and grooming.

Aging.ucsd.edu

Salma Jutt, Vice President of Marketing US, Orexigen Theraputics talks about their obesity drug CONTRAVE and how it works on two areas of the brain to reduce hunger and cravings. This is a drug for those committed to stick to a regime of exercise and diet and can help keep the weight off. A growing business in this age of selfies where there is an increasing interest in improving appearances and nearly unlimited opportunities to satisfy cravings for the wrong foods.

CONTRAVE.com

Jason Shelton, CEO, Telomere Diagnostics and developer of TeloYears is bringing to market a way to measure the health of the cells in our body. Using a blood test to determine the length of the telomeres at the end of the chromosomes, a person's TeloYears is computed and compared to others of the same chronological age. This biomarker of overall health is a relatively new test of body functions and could provide valuable information about slowing down the aging clock.

@teloyears

Telomere Diagnostics

TeloYears.com