Episodes
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Dr. David Stein, CEO and Director of Babson Diagnostics, a healthcare technology company that focuses on putting the patient at the center of the blood testing experience, recognizing the importance of blood testing in informing clinical decisions and monitoring health. They aim to redefine blood testing by eliminating the anxiety and inconvenience associated with traditional blood testing methods by offering a more accessible and convenient approach. Blood samples are collected with an innovative device from the patient's fingertip at retail pharmacy locations, and patients use a digital app and QR code system to order and track tests, and receive test results.
David explains, "Babson Diagnostics is a science-first healthcare technology company that has reimagined the end-to-end blood testing experience. In that experience, the patient and customer are the strong focus. We've all experienced times when we've had a blood test ordered for us, and we’ve felt anxious. We've tried, as much as we can, to eliminate that, both by the location where we provide the service, which is the retail pharmacy, and also through our approach, where we easily take samples from your finger, wrap it in a digital layer to make it all understandable. In the end, provide a preferred experience that is much more convenient and accessible than what you experience today."
"Probably the more important thing is how can we make it so that you don't have to get venipuncture, so that you don't have to get a needle in your arm, because for a significant part of our population, having a sharp object inserted in your body, is not something most of us like. So, in reality, between vasovagal issues and difficult veins, people are looking for a true alternative."
"People are also looking for accessibility and convenience. What we have innovated is in both aspects. One is to allow you to do broad, clinical-grade testing with a sample that's easily collected from your fingertip while also being able to get that collection done in locations near your home, such as your local supermarket or your local pharmacy. We've tried to innovate in two aspects, which is what everybody wants -- accessibility and convenience. We see that in every part of our economy and have changed the way that blood is collected so that you don’t have the anxiety of a needle going in your arm."
#BabsonDiagnostics #BloodTesting #Pharmacies #BetterWay #MedicalDevice #MedTech
BabsonDX.com
Listen to the podcast here
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Dr. David Stein, CEO and Director of Babson Diagnostics, a healthcare technology company that focuses on putting the patient at the center of the blood testing experience, recognizing the importance of blood testing in informing clinical decisions and monitoring health. They aim to redefine blood testing by eliminating the anxiety and inconvenience associated with traditional blood testing methods by offering a more accessible and convenient approach. Blood samples are collected with an innovative device from the patient's fingertip at retail pharmacy locations, and patients use a digital app and QR code system to order and track tests and receive test results.
David explains, "Babson Diagnostics is a science-first healthcare technology company that has reimagined the end-to-end blood testing experience. In that experience, the patient and customer are the strong focus. We've all experienced times when we've had a blood test ordered for us, and we’ve felt anxious. We've tried, as much as we can, to eliminate that, both by the location where we provide the service, which is the retail pharmacy, and also through our approach, where we easily take samples from your finger, wrap it in a digital layer to make it all understandable. In the end, provide a preferred experience that is much more convenient and accessible than what you experience today."
"Probably the more important thing is how can we make it so that you don't have to get venipuncture, so that you don't have to get a needle in your arm, because for a significant part of our population, having a sharp object inserted in your body, is not something most of us like. So, in reality, between vasovagal issues and difficult veins, people are looking for a true alternative."
"People are also looking for accessibility and convenience. What we have innovated is in both aspects. One is to allow you to do broad, clinical-grade testing with a sample that's easily collected from your fingertip while also being able to get that collection done in locations near your home, such as your local supermarket or your local pharmacy. We've tried to innovate in two aspects, which is what everybody wants -- accessibility and convenience. We see that in every part of our economy and have changed the way that blood is collected so that you don’t have the anxiety of a needle going in your arm."
#BabsonDiagnostics #BloodTesting #Pharmacies #BetterWay #MedicalDevice #MedTech
BabsonDX.com
Download the transcript here
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Episodes manquant?
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Joan Butters, CEO and Co-Founder of Xsolis works with health systems and health plans to automate medical necessity decisions and improve efficiency. Using data and AI, Xsolis helps clinicians make more informed decisions and reduces manual administrative work, resulting in time and cost savings and improved patient care. Addressing the challenges and pushback faced when introducing AI into healthcare, Joan emphasizes the importance of understanding the limitations and complexities of generative AI and the need for subject matter expertise in developing prompts to properly address friction points between providers and payers in the healthcare environment.
Joan explains, "More important to this audience are the administrative aspects and the impact of that back and forth on the cost of healthcare. We were very fortunate that we found a niche in what we were trying to solve for. Again, that was the medical necessity decision whether a patient required hospital-based care. And then, with that laser focus, we did a lot of research from both sides and found that there was a way to automate through the use of data and AI to solve some of those problems."
"There are definitely two areas that we have a direct impact on. As I said, one is the cost of healthcare—so big efficiency. If you think about what clinicians do when they're making a determination of hospital-based care, prior to Xsolis, those clinicians would be reading through multiple data points and not data points that were connected, which became a very manual process. With automation and artificial intelligence, our system allows that very costly staff to be much more efficient in making those determinations. Coupled with that, instead of clinicians doing administrative tasks, the automation we provide through AI and our technology frees the clinician to be back at the bedside with the patient."
#Xsolis #Healthcare #HealthcareAdministration #Workflow #RemovingWorkflowFriction #AI #MedicalNecessityDecisions #Clinicians
xsolis.com
Listen to the podcast here
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Joan Butters, CEO and Co-Founder of Xsolis works with health systems and health plans to automate medical necessity decisions and improve efficiency. Using data and AI, Xsolis helps clinicians make more informed decisions and reduces manual administrative work, resulting in time and cost savings and improved patient care. Addressing the challenges and pushback faced when introducing AI into healthcare, Joan emphasizes the importance of understanding the limitations and complexities of generative AI and the need for subject matter expertise in developing prompts to properly address friction points between providers and payers in the healthcare environment.
Joan explains, "More important to this audience are the administrative aspects and the impact of that back and forth on the cost of healthcare. We were very fortunate that we found a niche in what we were trying to solve for. Again, that was the medical necessity decision whether a patient required hospital-based care. And then, with that laser focus, we did a lot of research from both sides and found that there was a way to automate through the use of data and AI to solve some of those problems."
"There are definitely two areas that we have a direct impact on. As I said, one is the cost of healthcare—so big efficiency. If you think about what clinicians do when they're making a determination of hospital-based care, prior to Xsolis, those clinicians would be reading through multiple data points and not data points that were connected, which became a very manual process. With automation and artificial intelligence, our system allows that very costly staff to be much more efficient in making those determinations. Coupled with that, instead of clinicians doing administrative tasks, the automation we provide through AI and our technology frees the clinician to be back at the bedside with the patient."
#Xsolis #Healthcare #HealthcareAdministration #Workflow #RemovingWorkflowFriction #AI #MedicalNecessityDecisions #Clinicians
xsolis.com
Download the transcript here
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Sanjeev Redkar, Co-Founder, Executive Director, and President of Apollomics, focuses on difficult-to-treat cancers, such as lung cancer, brain cancer, and leukemias, not served by immune checkpoint inhibitors. Their approach targets the thematic pathway in cancer cells responsible for their growth and proliferation. In their drug development, AI and data analysis drive precision-targeted therapies based on tumor molecular profiling. They are developing the drugs Vebreltinib and Uproleselan, which can be used as standalone treatments or in combination with other therapies to treat rare cancers.
Sanjeev explains, "There's a pathway that is very important for the growth of cancer cells. This is proliferation, motility, migration, and invasion of cancer cells, and that's the thematic pathway. This is an important receptor, which is upstream in cell signaling of these cancer cells. This is when these pathways work well, these cells grow as normal homeostasis, normal growth of cells. When this pathway is disrupted in cancer cells, they tend to grow far more than what normal cells would. That's the pathway that we are going after. These are mutations in this pathway, in the genome amplification, gene amplification, and fusions, which lead for these particular cancers to grow well. If you are able to inhibit that pathway, then you are able to impart benefit to the patient. And that's what one of our main drugs, Vebreltinib, is going after."
"As a whole, in lung cancer, even though the checkpoint inhibitors have moved the needle in terms of five-year survival rates, the needle has been moved from about 25% to about 30%, 32%, which is still much lower than say breast cancer, prostate cancer, where the five-year survival rates are close to 80%, 90%. So, how we can win the battle against lung cancer and brain cancer is really using precision-targeted therapies. These slivers of cancers that have a particular mutation, that have a particular dysregulation, and having treatments for that allow these patients a targeted approach for a longer benefit as opposed to one treatment for the entire lung cancer population. That is why we go after the so-called slivers, which put them into the rare cancers bucket."
#Apollomics #RareDiseases #Cancer #LungCancer #Leukemias #BrainCancer #RareCancers #NextGenSequencing #MolecularProfiling #CancerMolecularProfiling #TumorMolecularProfiling #AI
Apollomics.com
Listen to the podcast here
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Sanjeev Redkar, Co-Founder, Executive Director, and President of Apollomics, focuses on difficult-to-treat cancers, such as lung cancer, brain cancer, and leukemias, not served by immune checkpoint inhibitors. Their approach targets the thematic pathway in cancer cells responsible for their growth and proliferation. In their drug development, AI and data analysis drive precision-targeted therapies based on tumor molecular profiling. They are developing the drugs Vebreltinib and Uproleselan, which can be used as standalone treatments or in combination with other therapies to treat rare cancers.
Sanjeev explains, "There's a pathway that is very important for the growth of cancer cells. This is proliferation, motility, migration, and invasion of cancer cells, and that's the thematic pathway. This is an important receptor, which is upstream in cell signaling of these cancer cells. This is when these pathways work well, these cells grow as normal homeostasis, normal growth of cells. When this pathway is disrupted in cancer cells, they tend to grow far more than what normal cells would. That's the pathway that we are going after. These are mutations in this pathway, in the genome amplification, gene amplification, and fusions, which lead for these particular cancers to grow well. If you are able to inhibit that pathway, then you are able to impart benefit to the patient. And that's what one of our main drugs, Vebreltinib, is going after."
"As a whole, in lung cancer, even though the checkpoint inhibitors have moved the needle in terms of five-year survival rates, the needle has been moved from about 25% to about 30%, 32%, which is still much lower than say breast cancer, prostate cancer, where the five-year survival rates are close to 80%, 90%. So, how we can win the battle against lung cancer and brain cancer is really using precision-targeted therapies. These slivers of cancers that have a particular mutation, that have a particular dysregulation, and having treatments for that allow these patients a targeted approach for a longer benefit as opposed to one treatment for the entire lung cancer population. That is why we go after the so-called slivers, which put them into the rare cancers bucket."
#Apollomics #RareDiseases #Cancer #LungCancer #Leukemias #BrainCancer #RareCancers #NextGenSequencing #MolecularProfiling #CancerMolecularProfiling #TumorMolecularProfiling #AI
Apollomics.com
Download the transcript here
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Kristen Helton, CEO and Co-Founder of Herself Health, provides comprehensive primary care designed specifically for women over 65, considering the unique health challenges these women face. The emphasis is on the importance of addressing women's health beyond reproductive health and the need for tailored treatment and screening for conditions that affect women differently than men. Kristen notes the underrepresentation of women, especially older women, in clinical trials and the need for further investigation. They aim to reduce bias and improve the quality of care for older women by adopting a person-centric approach, listening to patients' concerns, and building trust.
Kristen explains, "Almost half of the burdens of disease that women experience stem from conditions that affect women differently than men. So, a lot of these diseases, cardiovascular, chronic illness, gastroenterology, and depression, affect men differently than they affect women. We're very focused on how we treat women and screen them for different diseases. We take a really comprehensive health history. Women have a lot of data that we need to understand as we're putting together the picture of their overall health."
"I mean, 65 is young old, in fact. It's just the beginning, and there are a lot of differences between 65 and 75 and 85 and 95. We're talking about decades. So I'm also remiss in grouping 65 and up even into a single category. But you hit on something super important there, and that is women are not satisfied with the answer that's just what happens as you get older. It comes back to, in essence, the quality of life. I think this is where we're seeing some real success in our approach, which is yes, we want to do all of the important preventative, physical, behavioral health care. But we also want to understand the patient's goals and what they're trying to get to and maintain."
#HerselfHealth #WomensHealth #Healthcare #ValueBasedCare #PrimaryCare
herself-health.com
Listen to the podcast here
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Kristen Helton, CEO and Co-Founder of Herself Health, provides comprehensive primary care designed specifically for women over 65, considering the unique health challenges these women face. The emphasis is on the importance of addressing women's health beyond reproductive health and the need for tailored treatment and screening for conditions that affect women differently than men. Kristen notes the underrepresentation of women, especially older women, in clinical trials and the need for further investigation. They aim to reduce bias and improve the quality of care for older women by adopting a person-centric approach, listening to patients' concerns, and building trust.
Kristen explains, "Almost half of the burdens of disease that women experience stem from conditions that affect women differently than men. So, a lot of these diseases, cardiovascular, chronic illness, gastroenterology, and depression, affect men differently than they affect women. We're very focused on how we treat women and screen them for different diseases. We take a really comprehensive health history. Women have a lot of data that we need to understand as we're putting together the picture of their overall health."
"I mean, 65 is young old, in fact. It's just the beginning, and there are a lot of differences between 65 and 75 and 85 and 95. We're talking about decades. So I'm also remiss in grouping 65 and up even into a single category. But you hit on something super important there, and that is women are not satisfied with the answer that's just what happens as you get older. It comes back to, in essence, the quality of life. I think this is where we're seeing some real success in our approach, which is yes, we want to do all of the important preventative, physical, behavioral health care. But we also want to understand the patient's goals and what they're trying to get to and maintain."
#HerselfHealth #WomensHealth #Healthcare #ValueBasedCare #PrimaryCare
herself-health.com
Download the transcript here
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Robert Towarnicki, CEO and Co-founder of SIRPant Immunotherapeutics, discusses cancer-specific immunotherapy for aggressive tumors, the role macrophages play in the immune response to cancer, and how cancer cells can shut down this response. SIRPant Immunotherapeutics aims to modify macrophages by reducing SIRPα expression, triggering them to eat cancer cells and educate other immune cells. Early evidence demonstrates potential effectiveness for various cancers, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and solid tumors. Robert emphasizes this therapy's scalability and cost advantages compared to other cell therapies like CAR-T. He also highlights the potential for treating rare diseases and the ability of SIRPant-M to target a wide range of cancers without the need for pre-identified targets.
Robert explains, "Macrophages are a normal immune cell type in your body. They normally function to recognize foreign invaders and process them in the sense of phagocytizing or eating the foreign protein and invader, if it's a virus, a bacteria, or a cancer. Unfortunately, cancers are very good at shutting down this immune response. So, we need to modify the macrophage and re-empower it to elicit the other immune cells in the body to do their job and eliminate cancer."
"I think one of the mistakes we've seen with others working with the macrophage in this situation was the lack of appreciation for the role of SIRPα. Our inventor, Dr. Yuan Liu at Georgia State University, identified this early on through a knockout mouse, a mouse where SIRPα was genetically removed from it. With that mouse, she could discover and learn how macrophages function and react. It directed us to the whole concept of removing SIRPα from the macrophage. Now, removal alone is not enough. You also have to activate a macrophage. So, a macrophage exists in multiple states. There's an active state, and then there's an inactive state."
#SIRPant #Immunotherapy #Macrophages #Oncology #Cancer
sirpantimmunotx.com
Listen to the podcast here
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Robert Towarnicki, CEO and Co-founder of SIRPant Immunotherapeutics, discusses cancer-specific immunotherapy for aggressive tumors, the role macrophages play in the immune response to cancer, and how cancer cells can shut down this response. SIRPant Immunotherapeutics aims to modify macrophages by reducing SIRPα expression, triggering them to eat cancer cells and educate other immune cells. Early evidence demonstrates potential effectiveness for various cancers, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and solid tumors. Robert emphasizes this therapy's scalability and cost advantages compared to other cell therapies like CAR-T. He also highlights the potential for treating rare diseases and the ability of SIRPant-M to target a wide range of cancers without the need for pre-identified targets.
Robert explains, "Macrophages are a normal immune cell type in your body. They normally function to recognize foreign invaders and process them in the sense of phagocytizing or eating the foreign protein and invader, if it's a virus, a bacteria, or a cancer. Unfortunately, cancers are very good at shutting down this immune response. So, we need to modify the macrophage and re-empower it to elicit the other immune cells in the body to do their job and eliminate cancer."
"I think one of the mistakes we've seen with others working with the macrophage in this situation was the lack of appreciation for the role of SIRPα. Our inventor, Dr. Yuan Liu at Georgia State University, identified this early on through a knockout mouse, a mouse where SIRPα was genetically removed from it. With that mouse, she could discover and learn how macrophages function and react. It directed us to the whole concept of removing SIRPα from the macrophage. Now, removal alone is not enough. You also have to activate a macrophage. So, a macrophage exists in multiple states. There's an active state, and then there's an inactive state."
#SIRPant #Immunotherapy #Macrophages #Oncology #Cancer
sirpantimmunotx.com
Download the transcript here
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Jeff Surges, CEO of RLDatix, offers global cloud-based solutions for risk management, compliance management, and regulatory management in healthcare. To address patient safety, Jeff emphasizes the need for a collaborative workforce, data analytics, and AI. RLDatix uses technology to automate information gathering, facilitate incident reporting, and analyze data to determine proactive actions to prevent incidents and improve safety.
Jeff explains, "The simplest analogy when I get asked this is: how does this relate to other industries? We all fly in airplanes, and we've seen in the airline industry most recently with doors coming off, the emergency exit doors, close calls, or what we'll call incidents where you need to look at the root cause. The key difference is if a plane goes down, as tragic as that is, the pilots and the crew go down. But in healthcare, if there's an incident or a procedure or an event that has occurred, it's likely only affecting the patient and the patient's family. That's not meant to say that people don't care, everybody cares, but it doesn't affect the entire circumference. What we try to do is make it automated, make it easy to use, engage with what we call a culture of safety, which starts at the very highest level, and then using data analytics, now, generative AI."
"For 20 years, an article written in our industry called To Err Is Human kicked off the energy around improving patient safety. I think the first phase of that for over ten years, 15 years, was just documenting the event after it happened. Let's document. Let's run around and automate, document, and report on it."
"Today, that's no longer the case. All of our customers and our industry want to prevent this. We use terms like highly reliable- I want to be an HRO, a highly reliable organization. We're competing on safety. Everybody wants to go to the safest place for care. We're trying to use data and analytics to both prevent and gain the insights to make sure that we can continue that not just one time. The data is telling us there are some decisions we can make in our policies and our procedures, in our staffing levels, and in our credentialing of staff to make sure that we can continue. So, going from reactive to proactive risk mitigation."
#RLDatix #ConnectedHealthcareOperations #PatientSafety #HealthTech #AI
rldatix.com
Listen to the podcast here
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Jeff Surges, CEO of RLDatix, offers global cloud-based solutions for risk management, compliance management, and regulatory management in healthcare. To address patient safety, Jeff emphasizes the need for a collaborative workforce, data analytics, and AI. RLDatix uses technology to automate information gathering, facilitate incident reporting, and analyze data to determine proactive actions to prevent incidents and improve safety.
Jeff explains, "The simplest analogy when I get asked this is: how does this relate to other industries? We all fly in airplanes, and we've seen in the airline industry most recently with doors coming off, the emergency exit doors, close calls, or what we'll call incidents where you need to look at the root cause. The key difference is if a plane goes down, as tragic as that is, the pilots and the crew go down. But in healthcare, if there's an incident or a procedure or an event that has occurred, it's likely only affecting the patient and the patient's family. That's not meant to say that people don't care, everybody cares, but it doesn't affect the entire circumference. What we try to do is make it automated, make it easy to use, engage with what we call a culture of safety, which starts at the very highest level, and then using data analytics, now, generative AI."
"For 20 years, an article written in our industry called To Err Is Human kicked off the energy around improving patient safety. I think the first phase of that for over ten years, 15 years, was just documenting the event after it happened. Let's document. Let's run around and automate, document, and report on it."
"Today, that's no longer the case. All of our customers and our industry want to prevent this. We use terms like highly reliable- I want to be an HRO, a highly reliable organization. We're competing on safety. Everybody wants to go to the safest place for care. We're trying to use data and analytics to both prevent and gain the insights to make sure that we can continue that not just one time. The data is telling us there are some decisions we can make in our policies and our procedures, in our staffing levels, and in our credentialing of staff to make sure that we can continue. So, going from reactive to proactive risk mitigation."
#RLDatix #ConnectedHealthcareOperations #PatientSafety #HealthTech #AI
rldatix.com
Download the transcript here
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Lou Lintereur, Chief Engineer for automated delivery systems at Medtronic Diabetes, brought his knowledge from working as an aerospace engineer at NASA to developing technology for those living with diabetes. He introduces the MiniMed 780G, a closed-loop system that combines an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor (CGM) with a control algorithm that tailors itself to each patient's unique physiology and Meal Detection technology, which helps manage their blood sugar levels. Patient feedback is essential to the continuing innovation of these hybrid closed-loop tools to manage diabetes.
Lou explains, "There are two main challenges we're always trying to deal with, and they kind of compete with each other. One is just the fundamental technology, trying to get the best therapy for the patients and the best outcomes for a long, healthy life where they're feeling good. With respect to diabetes, it's about keeping your blood sugar under as tight a control as possible within a normal glucose range. So that poses the technical challenges of how to design a control system to do that with all the uncertainties of human physiology and so forth."
"But on the other side, the systems we make at Medtronic Diabetes are almost consumer products. In order to get the therapy that they need, the patient often has to contribute to the therapy. They need to indicate when they're eating, for example, and then help the system calculate how much they're eating so that they can dose the insulin properly to manage their meals better. It requires some cooperation with the patients. So, on that side of the challenge is, how do you make the system easy enough to use so that the patient can get the best outcomes possible and do as little work as possible? Because the last thing the patient wants to do is be bothered all the time having to manage their therapy."
#MedtronicDiabetes #Diabetes #ContinuousGlucoseMonitor #CGM #InsulinPump
medtronicdiabetes.com
Listen to the podcast here
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Lou Lintereur, Chief Engineer for automated delivery systems at Medtronic Diabetes, brought his knowledge from working as an aerospace engineer at NASA to developing technology for those living with diabetes. He introduces the MiniMed 780G, a closed-loop system that combines an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor (CGM) with a control algorithm that tailors itself to each patient's unique physiology and Meal Detection technology, which helps manage their blood sugar levels. Patient feedback is essential to the continuing innovation of these hybrid closed-loop tools to manage diabetes.
Lou explains, "There are two main challenges we're always trying to deal with, and they kind of compete with each other. One is just the fundamental technology, trying to get the best therapy for the patients and the best outcomes for a long, healthy life where they're feeling good. With respect to diabetes, it's about keeping your blood sugar under as tight a control as possible within a normal glucose range. So that poses the technical challenges of how to design a control system to do that with all the uncertainties of human physiology and so forth."
"But on the other side, the systems we make at Medtronic Diabetes are almost consumer products. In order to get the therapy that they need, the patient often has to contribute to the therapy. They need to indicate when they're eating, for example, and then help the system calculate how much they're eating so that they can dose the insulin properly to manage their meals better. It requires some cooperation with the patients. So, on that side of the challenge is, how do you make the system easy enough to use so that the patient can get the best outcomes possible and do as little work as possible? Because the last thing the patient wants to do is be bothered all the time having to manage their therapy."
#MedtronicDiabetes #Diabetes #ContinuousGlucoseMonitor #CGM #InsulinPump
medtronicdiabetes.com
Download the transcript here
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Mark Galvin, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of TALON, discusses the Transparency in Coverage rule in healthcare, which was added to the Affordable Care Act and requires commercial health plan sponsors to provide transparency in the costs of tests, procedures, and other medical services. The rule aims to provide patients with information on pricing and out-of-pocket costs before committing to services. The lack of awareness and understanding of the rule is in part due to the vested interests of certain stakeholders, such as insurance carriers, who are financially conflicted in driving down the cost of medical claims.
Mark explains, "I'm known as a disruptive innovator, as a serial startup guy. The Transparency in Coverage rule is a rule that was added to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, requiring that commercial health plan sponsors predominantly the employers that pay for the lion's share of commercial health plans are required now under that law with the new rule to provide to million members an ability to go from total opaqueness in price to total transparency in the costs of the tests and procedures and other things that they're faced with in their medical journeys."
"The mistake many of us made as consumers is that we believed our insurance carrier was a good surrogate to represent us as consumers in the marketplace. And what we never, many of us still don't realize, but many of us kind of woke up to is there's this thing called the 80/20 rule or medical loss ratio, which puts insurance carriers in a conflicted position. Their businesses are damaged financially by driving down the cost of medical claims because their revenues and premiums are tied to the amount of medical claims."
"So this is something people didn't know. And so while we put our trust in people to represent us as consumers, not realizing that it's not in their best interest to do the right things for us as consumers in terms of their normal business metrics, that it causes a huge conflict, financial conflict and perverted financial incentives in the market."
#TALONHealthtech #TransparencyinCoverage #MedicalCosts #PatientCare #AffordableCareAct #ReduceHealthcareCosts #Hospitals #MedicalBills #Healthcare #HealthTech #HealthcareReform
talonhealthtech.com
Listen to the podcast here
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Mark Galvin, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of TALON, discusses the Transparency in Coverage rule in healthcare, which was added to the Affordable Care Act and requires commercial health plan sponsors to provide transparency in the costs of tests, procedures, and other medical services. The rule aims to provide patients with information on pricing and out-of-pocket costs before committing to services. The lack of awareness and understanding of the rule is in part due to the vested interests of certain stakeholders, such as insurance carriers, who are financially conflicted in driving down the cost of medical claims.
Mark explains, "I'm known as a disruptive innovator, as a serial startup guy. The Transparency in Coverage rule is a rule that was added to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, requiring that commercial health plan sponsors predominantly the employers that pay for the lion's share of commercial health plans are required now under that law with the new rule to provide to million members an ability to go from total opaqueness in price to total transparency in the costs of the tests and procedures and other things that they're faced with in their medical journeys."
"The mistake many of us made as consumers is that we believed our insurance carrier was a good surrogate to represent us as consumers in the marketplace. And what we never, many of us still don't realize, but many of us kind of woke up to is there's this thing called the 80/20 rule or medical loss ratio, which puts insurance carriers in a conflicted position. Their businesses are damaged financially by driving down the cost of medical claims because their revenues and premiums are tied to the amount of medical claims."
"So this is something people didn't know. And so while we put our trust in people to represent us as consumers, not realizing that it's not in their best interest to do the right things for us as consumers in terms of their normal business metrics, that it causes a huge conflict, financial conflict and perverted financial incentives in the market."
#TALONHealthtech #TransparencyinCoverage #MedicalCosts #PatientCare #AffordableCareAct #ReduceHealthcareCosts #Hospitals #MedicalBills #Healthcare #HealthTech #HealthcareReform
talonhealthtech.com
Download the transcript here
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Alice Lin, DCT Solutions Director in the DCT Business Department of Tigermed Consulting, a global CRO, contract research organization, that provides biopharmaceutical and medical device companies with a range of services including digital technology to conduct decentralized clinical trials. Their approach focuses on patient-centricity, efficiency, and adaptability. By utilizing digital tools such as virtual visits, wearable devices, and mobile apps, Tigermed aims to make clinical trials more accessible and convenient for patients, improving recruitment and retention rates. They also emphasize the importance of DCT in including a diverse patient population in trials, particularly for rare diseases.
Alice explains, "While our headquarters is in China, we have grown into a global team of over 10,000 employees operating across over 180 locations worldwide. We recently celebrated our 20th anniversary, making two decades of dedicated collaborations with over 2,800 customers on their product journeys. DCT stands for decentralized clinical trials, which involves applying digital technologies to conduct clinical trials. Traditionally, most clinical trial activities are conducted at clinical sites. Still, with DCT, we can conduct some or even all of the trial procedures outside of these sites using digital technology."
"Currently, the hybrid DCT model is a common thing in clinical trials. It means some of the trial procedures could be conducted outside of clinical sites, but still keep some clinical trial activities at clinical sites. In our Tigermed DCT department, we are responsible for identifying the appropriate digital technologies for using in clinical trials, whether through self-development or collaboration with the various digital technology companies. We also manage the DCT daily operations in each clinical trial from the study beginning to the study completion."
"However, we get that every investigational product and the therapeutic areas bring its own set of challenges and patient needs. So, we make it a priority to figure out what digital tools work best for each study. Our CEO, Dr. Cao, and our head of the DCT business department always say our goal is not just to do decentralized clinical trials for the sake of it. It's about giving patients and caregivers options that fit their needs. This approach means patients and caregivers get solutions that work for them, showing that we are all about being flexible to what they need. Our decentralized clinical trials are all about making things easier for patients, lightening the load for our caregivers, and making the whole trial experience better for all stakeholders involved."
#TigermedGRP #CRO #ContractResearchOrganization #DCT #DecentralizedClinicalTrials #MedTech #RemoteMonitoring
TigermedGRP.com
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Alice Lin, DCT Solutions Director in the DCT Business Department of Tigermed Consulting, a global CRO, contract research organization, that provides biopharmaceutical and medical device companies with a range of services including digital technology to conduct decentralized clinical trials. Their approach focuses on patient-centricity, efficiency, and adaptability. By utilizing digital tools such as virtual visits, wearable devices, and mobile apps, Tigermed aims to make clinical trials more accessible and convenient for patients, improving recruitment and retention rates. They also emphasize the importance of DCT in including a diverse patient population in trials, particularly for rare diseases.
Alice explains, "While our headquarters is in China, we have grown into a global team of over 10,000 employees operating across over 180 locations worldwide. We recently celebrated our 20th anniversary, making two decades of dedicated collaborations with over 2,800 customers on their product journeys. DCT stands for decentralized clinical trials, which involves applying digital technologies to conduct clinical trials. Traditionally, most clinical trial activities are conducted at clinical sites. Still, with DCT, we can conduct some or even all of the trial procedures outside of these sites using digital technology."
"Currently, the hybrid DCT model is a common thing in clinical trials. It means some of the trial procedures could be conducted outside of clinical sites, but still keep some clinical trial activities at clinical sites. In our Tigermed DCT department, we are responsible for identifying the appropriate digital technologies for using in clinical trials, whether through self-development or collaboration with the various digital technology companies. We also manage the DCT daily operations in each clinical trial from the study beginning to the study completion."
"However, we get that every investigational product and the therapeutic areas bring its own set of challenges and patient needs. So, we make it a priority to figure out what digital tools work best for each study. Our CEO, Dr. Cao, and our head of the DCT business department always say our goal is not just to do decentralized clinical trials for the sake of it. It's about giving patients and caregivers options that fit their needs. This approach means patients and caregivers get solutions that work for them, showing that we are all about being flexible to what they need. Our decentralized clinical trials are all about making things easier for patients, lightening the load for our caregivers, and making the whole trial experience better for all stakeholders involved."
#TigermedGRP #CRO #ContractResearchOrganization #DCT #DecentralizedClinicalTrials #MedTech #RemoteMonitoring
TigermedGRP.com
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Dr. Marshall Fordyce, CEO and Founder of Vera Therapeutics, discusses the company's patient-centric approach to developing new medicines for autoimmune diseases. Vera is currently in Phase 3 with a molecule called Atacicept, which targets B cells in autoimmune diseases. They focus on IgA nephropathy, a rare kidney disease, and the third most common cause of kidney failure. A key concern is that declining kidney function is often misdiagnosed and not screened for because the early warning signs are so subtle.
Marshall explains, "Let me give you an example of our lead indication. So, our molecule in development is called atacicept. It targets the immune system in the specific area of B cells, and B cells are the factories of our antibodies, which we need to fight infection over our lifetime. But in patients with autoimmune disease, these B cells are overstimulated, they're overactive, and there are only a few medicines that target B cells with an appropriate balance of safety and efficacy. We had an insight that the science told us that by inhibiting two key factors in the body, BAFF and APRIL, we could normalize that overactivity of B cells and have better outcomes."
"Now traditional drug development may be long and expensive. We were very strategic in picking IgA nephropathy. This is an area that has had very little drug development over the last decade. A few small companies started to become interested in this area, and thankfully, because of patient advocacy, the FDA allowed a surrogate endpoint in Phase 3 trials, which made it more efficient to bring this molecule forward. So, there are now two drugs on the market for the first time in the last three or four years, for two new drugs in IgA nephropathy. They don't target B cells, which is really what's driving this disease. They work downstream, or they're nonspecific."
"What Vera did differently is that we thought that we could actually demonstrate that kidney function, which in these young patients is declining at an alarming rate, if we could demonstrate that kidney function doesn't decline, that would be meaningful. It would be a significant leap. We don't see that happen in "traditional" drug development often, in my view. So, I think what's different here is that we're picking an area where we think we can intervene and, in early-stage development, show a meaningful improvement in outcomes for patients."
#VeraTherapeutics #KidneyDisease #RareDisease #BCells #Immunotherapy #AutoimmuneDiseases #IgANephropathy
veratx.com
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Dr. Marshall Fordyce, CEO and Founder of Vera Therapeutics, discusses the company's patient-centric approach to developing new medicines for autoimmune diseases. Vera is currently in Phase 3 with a molecule called Atacicept, which targets B cells in autoimmune diseases. They focus on IgA nephropathy, a rare kidney disease, and the third most common cause of kidney failure. A key concern is that declining kidney function is often misdiagnosed and not screened for because the early warning signs are so subtle.
Marshall explains, "Let me give you an example of our lead indication. So, our molecule in development is called atacicept. It targets the immune system in the specific area of B cells, and B cells are the factories of our antibodies, which we need to fight infection over our lifetime. But in patients with autoimmune disease, these B cells are overstimulated, they're overactive, and there are only a few medicines that target B cells with an appropriate balance of safety and efficacy. We had an insight that the science told us that by inhibiting two key factors in the body, BAFF and APRIL, we could normalize that overactivity of B cells and have better outcomes."
"Now traditional drug development may be long and expensive. We were very strategic in picking IgA nephropathy. This is an area that has had very little drug development over the last decade. A few small companies started to become interested in this area, and thankfully, because of patient advocacy, the FDA allowed a surrogate endpoint in Phase 3 trials, which made it more efficient to bring this molecule forward. So, there are now two drugs on the market for the first time in the last three or four years, for two new drugs in IgA nephropathy. They don't target B cells, which is really what's driving this disease. They work downstream, or they're nonspecific."
"What Vera did differently is that we thought that we could actually demonstrate that kidney function, which in these young patients is declining at an alarming rate, if we could demonstrate that kidney function doesn't decline, that would be meaningful. It would be a significant leap. We don't see that happen in "traditional" drug development often, in my view. So, I think what's different here is that we're picking an area where we think we can intervene and, in early-stage development, show a meaningful improvement in outcomes for patients."
#VeraTherapeutics #KidneyDisease #RareDisease #BCells #Immunotherapy #AutoimmuneDiseases #IgANephropathy
veratx.com
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