INTERVIEWS

Gregory Flesher is President and CEO of Reneo Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company tackling the significant unmet need of developing therapies for patients with rare genetic mitochondrial diseases. The company’s lead candidate, REN001, is currently being investigated in the Phase 2b STRIDE clinical trial for patients with Primary Mitochondrial Myopathies (PMM). He talks about the ongoing development of REN001 and what the future holds for Reneo Pharmaceuticals.

Sebastian Seiguer, CEO of Scene Health, formerly emocha Health, and Dr. Kevin Hallgren of the University of Washington School of Medicine discuss the implications of video observation of methadone dosing for patient safety, policy and the behavioral health backlog. Dr. Hallgren is the lead author of a study published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment (Oct 4, 2022), conducted in conjunction with Scene Health, that evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and engagement with smartphone-based video observation of methadone take-home dosing.

Nick  Nieslanik,  Chief Technology Officer at Cleerly, the company creating a new standard of care for heart disease, discusses Cleerly Proxy. The Proxy software allows Cleerly to seamlessly transmit heart disease imaging data to care providers by automating the upload of coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) scans of patients’ hearts from local systems to Cleerly’s cloud service. The solution removes the need for physicians and providers to have multiple systems and workflows, and allows them to focus on the priority, heart disease detection, using Cleerly’s reporting and analytics insights.

Dr. Tram Tran, Chief Medical Officer of Glympse Bio, is developing biosensor technology that is able to measure protease activity from a blood sample to detect and monitor disease. Here she discusses recently published data demonstrating that Glympse’s platform can be applied for the sensitive detection of hepatocellular carcinoma or HCC, the most common form of liver cancer. This marks the first demonstration of the platform outside of NASH, the lead indication for the diagnostic technology.

Caring Cross is a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to accelerating the development of advanced medicines and ensuring access to cures for all patients, everywhere. To enable its mission, Caring Cross is mobilizing a growing community of healthcare professionals, scientists, engineers, community advocates, donors, investors and business leaders to support the development of technologies and candidate medicines and technologies. Currently, Caring Cross is advancing several initiatives that aim to improve the accessibility, affordability and applicability of CAR-T technology and stem cell gene therapy. These opportunities include developing and implementing affordable solutions for the manufacture of CAR-T cells, advancing a decentralized, place-of-care cell manufacturing model, and developing its first therapeutic candidate, an anti-HIV duoCAR-T cell therapy designed to suppress HIV replication and eliminate HIV-expressing cells in people with HIV. A stem cell gene therapy for Sickle Cell Disease and Beta-Thalassemia is also in development. For more information on Caring Cross visit https://caringcross.org/

QIAGEN’s VP and Head of PCR Business, Michael Scheffler, discusses the QIAcuity system and how it helps biopharma customers with drug discovery and development. He also talks about QIAGEN customizing assays for customers and providing access to specialized multiplex assays. Scheffler emphasizes the advantages of digital PCR for improving drug safety and efficacy.

Dr. Ginger Polich, MD, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham discusses new research recently presented at the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (AAPM&R) 2022 Annual Assembly.

Millennials often prioritize living their “best” lives by ignoring symptoms or postponing a doctor visit – which is easy to do around the busy holiday season. But when it comes to a disease like multiple sclerosis – which millennials are in the age group most likely to be diagnosed – delaying diagnosis and treatment can negatively impact their health.

Tamara Tobias, ARNP, WHNP-BC, Women’s Health Care Nurse Practitioner & Manager at Seattle Reproductive Medicine discusses FertilityWise, a free, on-demand e-learning program developed to help fertility clinic staff members, particularly nurses and advanced practice providers, deepen their knowledge base about important and relevant topics in fertility. She shares her first-hand perspective on the importance of comprehensive information for fertility staff, its ties to higher quality patient care, and why these new easy-to-access modules provide the flexible resource fertility clinics are seeking.

Dr. Allen Davidoff, PhD, CEO of XORTX Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing promising therapeutics for progressive kidney disease, discusses the company’s lead assets that are designed to reduce uric acid to alleviate genetic autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) and COVID-19-related kidney injury. The current approved treatment for ADPKD can cause liver failure among other severe symptoms.