What You Should Know: 

– SubjectWell, a patient access marketplace connecting individuals with chronic health conditions to healthcare options, has acquired PatientCentra, a company specializing in global patient recruitment and personalized recruitment journeys. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. 

– This strategic acquisition enhances SubjectWell’s capacity to serve patient recruitment needs for international clinical studies and further extends its capabilities to recruit for rare diseases and oncology-related research.

– The combined capabilities of SubjectWell and PatientCentra enable customers to rely on a single company for end-to-end, global patient recruitment support for a range of studies, including vaccine trials, chronic conditions, rare diseases, and oncology research. 

PatientCentra Background

PatientCentra, located in Waltham, MA, offers full-service, global patient recruitment capabilities and an in-house agency for developing tailored, patient-centric recruitment journeys. PatientCentra brings 15 years of experience in delivering digitally enabled patient recruitment programs on five continents, adding to SubjectWell’s strengths in North America.

What You Should Know:

• Viome Life Sciences, a longevity company committed to translating scientific advancements into actionable and individualized health solutions, today announced the acquisition of Naring Health, a digital health and wellness company providing access to individualized clinical and molecular data to empower informed decisions.
• Under Naring Health, Viome will also be acquiring DiscernDX, a company making regular health monitoring, early disease detection, and personalized care a reality for every individual, and Foodome, a company that identifies all bioactive compounds in every food and uses network science to understand the connection between diet, genetic pathways, and diseases. 

Increasing Accessibility to Individualised Clinical and Molecular Data

“We’re entering a groundbreaking era of precision health, an era where every individual has the power to manage their unique nutritional needs effectively,” stated Viome founder & CEO Naveen Jain. “By acquiring entities whose visions align and complement ours, such as Naring Health, we’re advancing our commitment to making unprecedented health insights and actionable solutions increasingly attainable to all and with greater accuracy. We are driven by the goal to transform the paradigm of health through personalized nutrition, unveiling extraordinary insights that hold the key to preventing and reversing chronic diseases using food as medicine. 

By combining resources, including key patents and intellectual property, Viome has the ability to further enhance its suite of personalized health solutions with even more precise food and supplement recommendations. As two leaders in the health industry, the strategic acquisition is helping usher in a new age of personalized nutrition. It will grant customers access to the most comprehensive insights into what is going on in their bodies and how they can address issues at the root cause with personalized and precise nutrition. 

Both Viome and Naring Health share a common goal of providing personalized wellness tools that enable food to be used as medicine. While their strengths lie in slightly different areas – Viome focusing on the microbiome and Naring Health on multi-omics – they now unite under a shared vision of transforming healthcare through advanced, personalized solutions that are backed by data and science.

What You Should Know:

– United Therapeutics Corporation and Miromatrix Medical Inc. announced today a definitive agreement for United Therapeutics to acquire Miromatrix for $91M.

– The acquisition of Miromatrix will expand United Therapeutics’ existing complementary platform of organ manufacturing programs, which include ex-vivo lung perfusion, xenotransplantation, 3-D bioprinting, and regenerative medicine approaches with the objective of creating an unlimited supply of tolerable, transplantable organs.

Miromatrix Background

Miromatrix is a life sciences company focused on the development of bioengineered organs composed of human cells. United Therapeutics is a biotechnology company with six FDA-approved therapies to address rare, life-threatening conditions, and a pipeline that includes four ongoing registration-phase studies.

Financial Terms

Under terms of the deal, United Therapeutics will acquire all outstanding shares of Miromatrix for a purchase price of $3.25 per share in cash at closing (an aggregate of approximately $91M) and an additional $1.75 per share in cash upon the achievement of a clinical development milestone related to Miromatrix’s development-stage, fully-implantable manufactured kidney product known as mirokidney™ by December 31, 2025.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the biomedical community took on the task of developing and deploying critical interventions to address an unprecedented public health emergency. In a remarkable display of collective effort, stakeholders from government and industry came together to produce safe and effective mRNA vaccines as well as therapeutics– a groundbreaking achievement reached in record time. As the biomedical community looks to the future, government agencies have a tremendous opportunity to build on lessons learned and seize the momentum to accelerate biomedical innovation and attain beneficial public health and scientific outcomes. There is no shortage of health and research challenges to address.

Government leaders can continue to embrace their power to scale, speed and strengthen the biomedical research ecosystem by embracing three specific roles.

Role #1: Convene the Full Continuum of Stakeholders

Collaborative versus siloed research endeavors can yield results faster for patients. Public-private partnerships within the biomedical ecosystem have long prioritized the sharing of critical assets, expertise and knowledge. However, the COVID-19 response (best illustrated by the ACTIV partnership convened by the FNIH) revealed how successfully these partners can work together when equipped with the necessary resources. When fully optimized, partnerships can help reduce costs and speed time to market. Government can enable this optimization by identifying the right players, defining their roles, and providing critical resources. 

These collaborators could benefit from working toward common goals and breaking down existing silos of information. The Cancer Moonshot, launched by the Obama-Biden Administration in 2016, and now led by President Biden serves as a formidable example. It aims to accelerate cancer research, prevention, diagnosis and treatment by improving and incentivizing collaboration across different sectors – and by removing traditional barriers between different organizations throughout the biomedical ecosystem. It also has a bird’s eye view of the system, something we don’t focus on enough. 

Role #2: Focus on Patients and Communities

To spur innovation, government leaders should engage patients and provide key roles for them throughout the research process. Patients offer invaluable and unique insight into their conditions. They should be included in discussions and process mapping from the start – an effort that the government can help encourage. 

One recent example of patient engagement comes from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL). Established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the CEAL initiative seeks feedback from patients to address the disparities and challenges that exist in underserved and vulnerable communities. CEAL exemplifies the value and importance of community engagement and helps build the trust that’s necessary for an effective public health response effort. Crucially, it also aims to improve health equity. 

Role #3: Fund Collaborative Infrastructure

With its substantial funding mechanisms and its wide range of programs, the government is well-positioned to address major ecosystem challenges. But government’s previous methods to incentivize innovation and biomedical research don’t meet today’s growing needs. 

Budgets matter and studies have shown that targeted, disease-specific public research funding influences the private sector to increase funding as well. The government can also offer researchers the resources needed to take giant leaps and, if necessary, provide safe environments to fail and quickly recalibrate. Endeavors such as the newly created Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) foster a culture of experimentation and risk-taking, which spurs research, development and testing of transformational technologies and medicines. 

The Promising Path Ahead

While the biomedical research ecosystem comprises a complex network of interconnected stakeholders, effective collaboration between government, industry and academia can and has driven noteworthy accomplishments in biomedical research and public health. Working together, the research community can realize unparalleled innovation by dedicating the proper resources to collaboration and ensuring that patients’ voices are not just heard but valued – ensuring the government can serve as a significant catalyst.

About Margaret Anderson
Margaret Anderson is a managing director at Deloitte Consulting LLP, where she focuses on advancing treatments and interventions for patients and helping improve the outcomes and efficiency of healthcare research and delivery systems. She currently serves on President Biden’s National Cancer Advisory Board and sits on the boards of the ACT for the NIH Foundation, the Allen Institute, FasterCures, and Friends of Cancer Research.

What You Should Know:

– Georgiamune, a privately held, clinical stage biotechnology company, and Verily, an Alphabet precision health technology company forms a strategic partnership to advance novel therapeutics for patients with cancer.

– Through this partnership, Verily and Georgimune will focus on identifying the patient population that could potentially benefit the most from Georgiamune’s GIM-122, a first-in-class dual-functioning antibody that has the potential to help patients with advanced solid tumors who have not responded to current treatments with a checkpoint inhibitor.

Integrating Clinical Trial Data and Longitudinal Real-World Data Sources

The two companies will also focus on driving more efficient clinical development by incorporating clinical trial data and longitudinal real-world data sources. The collaboration innovates how clinical trials are currently conducted by bringing together different data modalities to identify the patient populations most likely to benefit from Georgiamune’s novel therapy and by providing a more holistic analysis of how participants are responding to the therapy over time.

The partners will implement immune mapping with Verily’s Immune Profiler for GIM-122, a first-in-class dual-functioning antibody currently being evaluated for safety, tolerability, and antitumor activity in a first-in-human, phase 1/2 clinical trial in adults with checkpoint refractory or resistant advanced solid tumor malignancies. Georgiamune will utilize Immune Profiler to assess the pharmacodynamic effect of GIM-122 and interrogate the immune response of patients. As part of the partnership, the two companies will also aim to expand into other assets developed by Georgiamune in cancer and other therapeutic areas, including autoimmune diseases. 

“Georgiamune is a cutting edge innovation company with groundbreaking scientific discoveries leading to first and best in class immune therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases,” said Georgiamune’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Samir N. Khleif. “Verily’s expertise in immune profiling, real-world data, and advanced analytics provide a comprehensive data profile to accelerate development of our novel drug candidate. This partnership will allow us to focus on identifying the patient population that could potentially benefit the most from our breakthrough discoveries.”

What You Should Know: 

– Patient-centered health data company PicnicHealth today announced it has acquired AllStripes, a healthcare technology company dedicated to unlocking new treatments for people with rare diseases. Financial terms of the transaction are not disclosed.

– Founded in 2017,  AllStripes has developed a technology platform that generates research-ready evidence to accelerate rare disease research and drug development, as well as a patient application that empowers patients and families to securely participate in treatment research online and benefit from their own medical data.

Harness the Power of Patient Data to Support Biomedical Research

PicnicHealth engages directly with patients to collect and curate comprehensive clinical data and patient-reported outcomes (PROs) to generate rich insights across patient healthcare journeys. Historically, generating such evidence has required the establishment of a network of clinical sites, which are expensive to operate, burdensome to patients and sites, and often lead to delays. PicnicHealth and AllStripes pioneered a new model by working directly with patients, which enables a deeper view of each patient’s health and experience while reducing the challenges of traditional site-based studies. With AllStripes’ strong relationships across patient communities, PicnicHealth expands its footprint and enhances its ability to guide critical and deep evidence generation. 

This acquisition will enable PicnicHealth to curate rich clinical data sets and patient-reported outcomes data to enhance offerings across a broader range of diseases and better serve diverse biopharma customers’ evidence-generation needs, including both clinical research and registry development.

“Through this acquisition, PicnicHealth will be able to better engage our patient community by incorporating the best of AllStripes’ patient experience into the PicnicHealth platform,” said Noga Leviner, CEO of PicnicHealth. “AllStripes and PicnicHealth share a common vision of elevating clinical studies by putting patients at the core of the research experience. By combining forces, we can unlock the potential of patient-centered studies and provide best-in-class solutions to support therapeutic development.”

What You Should Know:

• Pangea Biomed, the startup behind the innovative treatment response predictor, ENLIGHT, today announced its partnership with patient-centric advocacy organization FibroFighters to advance treatment for fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC) patients.
• Fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC) is a rare liver cancer that typically presents in young adolescents and young adults at a median age of 22 who have no history of liver disease. There is no clear standard of care for the disease, and in the setting of metastatic disease, 5-year survival rates are approximately 39 percent

Expanding Horizons in the Treatment for Fibrolamellar Carcinoma

“Since FLC makes up about 1% of all primary liver cancers, there is limited data on the disease, which impedes treatment,” said Pangea CEO Tuvik Beker, Ph.D. “Fortunately, by design, ENLIGHT is able to surface relevant insights specific to a patient’s tumor even without significant training datasets.”

Using ENLIGHT, which leverages unsupervised learning and sequenced tumor transcriptomics, Pangea will suggest treatments for FLC patients that FibroFighters work with, compare treatment response predictions against treatment outcomes, as well as with ex-vivo models, and refine models for treatment response and resistance. n December 2022, Pangea published a case study in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer on the ENLIGHT-matched treatment of an FLC patient. Despite common biomarkers for immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) coming back negative, the patient went into complete remission after being treated with an ENLIGHT-matched combination of ipilimumab (anti-CTLA4) and nivolumab (anti-PD-1).

What You Should Know:

• Today,  Nucleus RadioPharma the world’s first fully integrated development, manufacturing, and supply chain organization for radiopharmaceuticals has announced an oversubscribed $56 million Series A funding round led by Eclipse and GE HealthCare with participation from Echo Global, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Granger Management, Mayo Clinic, Mercy Health, and University of Missouri.
• With this round of funding, Nucleus RadioPharma will establish multiple new manufacturing facilities around the country, including Rochester, Minnesota, near Mayo Clinic, and build novel technology for the development, manufacturing, and distribution of radiopharmaceuticals.

Making Radiopharmaceuticals Increasingly Accessible Nationwide

Radiopharmaceuticals offer a highly targeted approach to a wide variety of cancer types and stages. “Conceivably, many cancers have the potential to be treated with a properly designed radiopharmaceutical and yet, very few patients with cancer are receiving this kind of treatment,” said Geoff Johnson, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of Nuclear Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and Chief Scientific Officer of Nucleus RadioPharma. Despite their promise, only a small fraction of patients are able to obtain these drugs due to limited production capacity and an outdated, fragmented supply chain. Nucleus RadioPharma was founded and built to ensure cancer patients can access potentially lifesaving radiopharmaceuticals by developing technologies to modernize the clinical development, manufacturing, and supply chain of these promising new therapies.

In addition to its manufacturing capabilities, Nucleus RadioPharma will shape the development of a new supply chain network designed to move, track, and deliver materials to patients faster and more efficiently. This network will cover the entire process, from identifying target molecules and testing treatments to supporting regulatory approvals and delivering patient-ready medication. Nucleus will bring life-saving treatments to an even broader patient base with the completion of multiple large regional sites. To enable global logistics and distribution of these therapies, the company is developing novel software and hardware technologies. 

Nucleus RadioPharma is positioned to expedite the availability of targeted radiopharmaceutical therapies through several ongoing partnerships and collaborations. These will enable rapid initiation of clinical trials, full support for formulation, analytical method development, regulatory guidance, and commercial manufacturing. 

What You Should Know:

• Gero, a biotechnology company focused on aging and chronic diseases, has closed $6M in a Series A extension round.
• This funding round positions Gero to continue internal drug development programs, grow its scientific team to boost platform technology development, and expand its US presence. The round was led by Melnichek Investments, a Cyprus-based VC firm that seeks to improve the quality of human lives by funding and supporting promising, potentially high-impact, machine-learning startups, with the participation of VitaDAO and Leonid Lozner.

Exploring New Horizons with Cutting-Edge Generative AI Tools

By applying cutting-edge generative AI tools to analyze real-world longitudinal human health data, Gero is dedicated to finding novel cures for age-related diseases. Its goal is to unravel the mysteries behind human aging and halt the aging process.

“The large health model that we have trained is instrumental in the discovery of therapies targeting aging and age-related diseases, both in-house and via collaborations with pharmaceutical companies,” said Peter Fedichev, Gero co-founder and CEO. “Thanks to this recent funding from Melnichek Investments, coupled with their expertise in modern AI through backing many successful companies, we are now well positioned to accelerate our progress.”

Earlier this year, Gero announced a research partnership with Pfizer and is in talks with other pharmaceutical companies interested in addressing age-related diseases as a growing market. Gero’s advanced health model distinguishes the effects of aging from those of diseases, potentially transforming genetics-driven drug discovery for common conditions. Melnichek Investments recognized the potential in Gero’s mission to gain insights into the causes of age-related diseases and create new treatments using AI technology. Age-related diseases are complex and require an understanding of vast data sets beyond human capacity. Gero’s work emphasizes the importance of this realization and the solutions it offers. Gero is a leader in the emerging field of medical research, suggesting that aging can be treated and controlled with modern technology, rather than being an unavoidable part of human existence.

What You Should Know: 

– The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) announced the launch of a new biomedical research hub in New York City that will catalyze collaboration between leading scientific and technology institutions in the area, with the goal of solving grand scientific challenges on 10- to 15-year time horizons. 

– The CZ Biohub NY is the fourth research institute in the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network, a groundbreaking collaborative model for scientific research. The Network includes the first CZ Biohub, in San Francisco, a second in Chicago, and the Chan Zuckerberg Institute for Advanced Biological Imaging in Redwood City, California. 

CZ Biohub NY Focused on Early Disease Detection, Prevention, Treatment

The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York (CZ Biohub NY) brings together Columbia University, The Rockefeller University, and Yale University to create new technologies to characterize and bioengineer immune cells — with the ultimate goal of creating disease-specific “cellular endoscopes” that can detect early stages of disease in cells, monitor cell changes, and resolve diseases before they become untreatable.  In addition to the funding from CZI, the State of New York and New York City are also contributing $10 million each to the CZ Biohub NY.

The CZ Biohub NY will first focus on learning more about the molecular memory and states of immune cells when they sense signals secreted by diseased cells and organs. This will help predict early signs of disease that are tissue-specific. Building on this, researchers will work to understand the mechanisms of immune cell trafficking to further direct cells to desired organs on-demand and to sense novel disease signals they are not yet built to detect. This will help CZ Biohub NY to bioengineer immune cells that can travel to specific organs, sense any potential abnormalities, and then record information in their molecular state for easy detection from a simple blood draw — or by using non-invasive engineered devices — for further interpretation by scientists and eventually physicians.

CZ Biohub NY will initially apply these novel, technology-driven approaches to hard-to-detect cancers such as ovarian and pancreatic cancers; neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s; as well as aging and autoimmunity. The next step is further training immune cells to make targeted repairs, such as promoting inflammation at a tumor site to activate a robust immune response.  

“The CZ Biohub Network is driving a new model of long-term, strategic collaborative science that will enable its scientists to address scientific challenges. These will range from bioengineering immune cells to take residence in specific organs, reporting back on tissue- and organ-specific health status, and eventually delivering therapeutic molecules to stop diseases at their earliest stages,” said CZ Biohub New York President Andrea Califano, who recently received the 26th Alfred G. Knudson Award in Cancer Genetics by the National Cancer Institute. “Joining the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network presents a unique opportunity and long-term runway to assemble a remarkable ‘dream team’ of scientists and technologists to pursue their most ambitious goals aimed at creating a healthier future for all of us. When we first thought of this idea, it sounded like science fiction. But then we realized that piece by piece, the scientists at this remarkable trio of research institutions had all the individual components that could make this starshot work. The CZ Biohub Network provides a unique opportunity and the means to realize these scientific aims over the next 10-15 years.”

You’ve probably heard about Ozempic, especially if you’re one of the millions who regularly scroll through TikTok or browse other social media platforms. It’s the drug that influencers are lauding as a revolutionary aid for weight loss, making it a hot topic of conversation. 

While Ozempic was initially developed to manage Type 2 diabetes, its emerging potential for weight loss is captivating medical professionals and the public alike.

How Ozempic Works: The Basics

Ozempic is a weekly injection containing the active ingredient semaglutide, FDA-approved in 2017 for adults with Type 2 diabetes. It helps control high blood sugar levels when used alongside lifestyle changes like proper diet and regular exercise. But the most intriguing discovery is its additional effect—weight loss—which is attracting interest well beyond the diabetic community.

Ozempic belongs to the class of drugs known as “GLP-1 receptor agonists.” It lowers blood glucose and stimulates insulin secretion, making it a mainstay in diabetes management. Furthermore, Ozempic also curtails the secretion of glucagon and slows down gastric emptying, which could help people feel full faster, making it an appealing option for potential weight loss prescriptions.

The Buzz on Social Media

There’s been a considerable surge in Ozempic’s popularity, fueled in part by social media influencers sharing their weight loss journeys. While Ozempic is not yet FDA-approved specifically for weight loss, some medical professionals are considering its “off-label” use as a weight-loss solution. 

It’s essential to note that its active ingredient, semaglutide, has already been approved for chronic weight management under the brand name Wegovy — which most recently, has shown positive effects on patients with heart failure — assuming the adult patient is overweight or obese and has at least one weight-related condition.

Navigating the Financials

While the enthusiasm around Ozempic’s potential is high, it’s worth mentioning that insurance usually does not cover off-label uses. Therefore, patients opting to use it for weight loss should be prepared for the cost, which could exceed $1,000 per month. 

Always Consult a Professional

While Ozempic has proven incredibly beneficial in managing Type 2 diabetes, just like any other medication, it does have its own potential set of side effects. There are some reports that have shown that Ozempic could potentially cause mild digestive side effects, among others. Therefore, consultation with a healthcare provider is critical for anyone considering Ozempic for weight loss. 

A Responsible Approach to Sharing Information

Social media has changed the way we perceive and consume medical information. While pharmaceutical companies are bound by rigorous standards and regulations, independent influencers are not held to the same criteria. In a digital age where personal testimonials can go viral and reach millions, it’s crucial for both medical professionals and social media users to share information responsibly. 

That being said, the majority of the information currently being shared regarding Ozempic’s effects is because there are clear, positive results that individuals are experiencing. At the end of the day, however, it is both the consumer’s responsibility to do their research and the company’s responsibility to provide the most up-to-date and accurate information on their products. 

To this extent, social media influencers — particularly those within the healthcare space — should understand the power that they have, and always keep in mind that information should always be shared responsibly. 

A Bright Future

Ongoing evaluations are looking into Ozempic’s potential role in weight loss. While it’s currently essential for managing Type 2 diabetes, its potential extends further, possibly helping millions more in their weight loss endeavors. The key is to approach this medication responsibly, guided by proper medical advice.

So, while the future seems promising for Ozempic as a groundbreaking treatment for both diabetes and potentially obesity, consultation with healthcare providers is essential for its safe and effective use.

About George Kramb
George Kramb is the CEO and co-founder of PatientPartner, a platform he created after recognizing the anxiety patients felt before medical procedures. With a background in supporting doctors in the operating room, George saw the need for more significant support, education, and compassion for patients facing stressful medical experiences. PatientPartner connects patients in a community of empathy and support, boasting over 100 PatientPartner Mentors who share their own medical experiences to help others. George, a Bachelor of Science in Economics graduate from the University of Oregon, has been featured in prestigious publications like Inc and Forbes 30 Under 30 for Consumer Technology and is a regular contributor to Entrepreneur. Under his leadership, PatientPartner has also built a network of over 50 doctors who prioritize improving their patients’ experiences through connections with relatable individuals.

What You Should Know:

• H1, the leading source of truth for global Healthcare Professional, clinical, scientific, and research information, today announced the launch of GenosAI, a new generative AI tool seamlessly embedded into its clinical trial intelligence platform, Trial Landscape, to analyze and respond to all types of complex inquiries. 
• Trial Landscape allows sponsors to identify new sites, centers of excellence, and investigators with diverse patients; evaluate site and PI patient recruitment strategies; and gauge competition across trials. GenosAI is a significant leap forward in enhancing efficiency, diversity, and innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. 

AI-Driven Platforms to Analyze Complex Inquiries

Deloitte suggests that AI has the potential to slash drug discovery costs by up to 70%. GenosAI harnesses its advanced data analysis capabilities to empower clinical researchers, enabling them to make quicker and more accurate decisions than ever before. With GenosAI, clinical operations, feasibility assessments, and medical teams can easily access profound insights, expedite workflows, explore novel data sources, enhance efficiency, reduce expenses, and accelerate the time it takes to bring products to market.

The Trial Landscape is a comprehensive repository of clinical trial data, drawing insights from over 490,000 trials, 25 million publications, 10 million healthcare providers (including those with diversity data), 240 million patients, and 11 billion global claims. Clients also have the option to integrate their own data, such as historical trial performance and feasibility questionnaire responses. GenosAI leverages this data and employs natural language processing (NLP) capabilities to decipher and respond to advanced analytical queries, offering an experience akin to ChatGPT. Users can pose questions such as “Which sponsors are leading the most promising small cell prostate cancer trials?” or “What are the top-performing sites for my phase 3 prostate cancer study?” and receive highly reliable, actionable responses within seconds.

“GenosAI has the power to be a pharma company’s most impactful Large Language Model (LLM) tool,” said Ariel Katz, CEO and co-founder, H1. “With GenosAI, we’ve combined the power of conversational AI with our unmatched breadth of healthcare data to give sponsors access to the best data and technology possible. We hope this will have a profound impact on clinical trial diversity and efficacy.”

GenosAI enhances the landscape of clinical research in the following manners:

1. Enhancing Competitive Intelligence & Trial Design: GenosAI provides valuable insights into competing trials, optimizing the strategies for designing clinical trials.

2. Streamlining Site Selection & Feasibility Assessment: GenosAI swiftly evaluates the performance and feasibility of clinical trial sites, assisting in the identification of the most suitable locations.

3. Promoting Diversity & Inclusion: GenosAI aids in achieving diversity and inclusion objectives in clinical trials, ensuring adequate representation of minority populations.

4. Improving Clinical Trial Design: By analyzing extensive medical literature and trial data, GenosAI identifies sites and Principal Investigators (PIs) that align with specific inclusion and exclusion criteria, thus enhancing the design of clinical trials.

5. Breaking Down Internal Clinical Trial Data Barriers: GenosAI has the capability to work with client data sources, breaking down historically isolated data silos to provide valuable insights.

GenosAI operates on H1’s global data platform, harnessing cutting-edge technologies such as machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) to establish a comprehensive, unified source of healthcare data. The platform prioritizes data privacy and security through the utilization of Microsoft Azure Enterprise GPT-4 and employs guardrails to mitigate common healthcare language model hallucinations. Additionally, the Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) approach enriches the model with H1-specific data and knowledge.

What You Should Know: 

– Medable Inc., a technology provider for modern clinical trials forms an enterprise partnership with Pluto Health, a smart care coordination services company. 

– The partnership brings together two best-in-class technology solutions in healthcare to streamline clinical trial execution, improve data quality in trials, and enhance the patient experience from study start and long after the trial is over. 

Optimize Patient Experience and Improve Access to Clinical Trials

The success of a clinical trial depends on its ability to enroll a prespecified and representative number of study participants within a planned time frame while ensuring quality data is collected to meet study objectives. However, due to increasing protocol complexity, stricter inclusion/ exclusion criteria and manual data capture, clinical trials remain too slow and costly to help many patients – especially patients whose best potential treatment option is a trial.

Medable and Pluto Health’s combined technologies will streamline enrollment and retention efforts by supporting the patient experience while facilitating easier recruitment and monitoring. Patients will benefit from additional support that optimizes engagement along their care journey; clinical research sites will increase productivity with a data-driven, digitized screening process; and trial sponsors will improve cost efficiency and speed study execution. In addition to patient enrollment, the Medable-Pluto Health partnership will make it easier for study teams to access relevant patient information and improve data quality as well as facilitate seamless, long-term follow-up with patients post-trial. Further, patents will be able to opt-in to receive real-time notifications of medically relevant future clinical trial opportunities.

“Our partnership is primarily a win for patients, alongside other stakeholders, who will benefit from ongoing enhanced support,” said Dr. Joy Bhosai, Pluto Health’s CEO and Founder. “Pluto is passionate about improving patient care in communities and designing systems that deliver resources for patients to manage health needs over time, especially if they are going through a clinical trial as part of a care option. We are excited for what the future holds with Medable.”

What You Should Know:  

– Phenomix Sciences, a precision medicine biotechnology company that brings data-driven precision medicine to obesity treatment, announced it has been awarded the first patent related to its obesity phenotyping technology. 

– The patent (No. 11,740,247, titled “Methods and Materials for Assessing and Treating Obesity”) covers methods for treating obesity by identifying phenotypes through obesity analyte signatures and administering interventions, such as medications based on that signature. 

What is obesity phenotyping?

Phenotyping classifies your type of obesity based on specific biological mechanisms. Understanding which of the four phenotypes you have pinpoints what is driving your weight gain and limiting your ability to lose weight. Using weight-loss solutions specific to your phenotype and genetic makeup can double your weight loss compared to conventional methods.

Precision Medicine and Phenotyping to Treat Obesity

The technology underlying the patent was developed by Phenomix’s founders at Mayo Clinic, Andres Acosta, M.D., Ph.D., and Michael Camilleri, M.D., D.Sc. The patent is assigned to Mayo Clinic and exclusively licensed to Phenomix to develop, manufacture and market obesity phenotyping tests including the two MyPhenome^TM Tests launched by the company earlier in the year. 

The newly granted patent was issued from one of four families of filed patent applications. The patent applications are directed to various aspects of personalized obesity medicine, including foundational obesity phenotyping technology, analytical and computer implemented methods, phenotype-related lifestyle interventions and specific predictors of drug response. The claims cover many types of analytes, including gene variants (SNPs), metabolites, gastrointestinal peptides and hormones; questionnaires, and phenotypes which are linked to specific interventions (e.g., pharmacological agents). 

What You Should Know:

• Komodo Health today introduced MapLab™, the first all-in-one offering for healthcare and Life Sciences companies to generate insights into disease trends, treatment pathways, patient populations, and a host of other complex research questions.
• The technology ushers in a new, fully integrated insights workflow solution for the industry to more easily and rapidly unearth rich insights that will help reduce disease burden at scale. MapLab includes robust data science tooling, customizable analytics dashboards, and a generative AI analytic assistant, delivered atop a unified, enterprise-wide platform and powered by Komodo’s best-in-class real-world patient data.

Strengthening Research in Healthcare Via Improved Insights

Despite the abundance of healthcare data, industry players still struggle to effectively consolidate valuable insights throughout their organizations. Many resort to buying separate datasets from traditional aggregators and marketplaces, attempting complex integration, and relying on expensive, generic business intelligence tools that require extensive customization and provide limited expertise. These obstacles frequently hinder progress in delivering essential treatments to patients in need. MapLab, heralding the future of AI and data-driven healthcare innovation, revolutionizes the way users address their daily analytical demands.

“MapLab represents the most powerful AI-fueled insights engine available in the market, and we’re putting that directly into the hands of our customers,” said Arif Nathoo, CEO and Co-Founder of Komodo Health. “Progress in healthcare has been hampered by fragmented data scattered throughout the enterprise, disconnected analytic tools, and the absence of a reliable, flexible platform for insight generation. With MapLab, we’re delivering a scalable, connected healthcare intelligence experience that the entire enterprise can use.”

Companies can utilize Komodo’s specialized technology in their daily operations to establish a unified source of reliable clinical and business intelligence across the entire organization. Through MapLab, users can:

1. Accelerate Insights and Scalability: Automate common analytical tasks and reduce the time needed to make an impact by accessing a comprehensive collection of pre-built resources curated by Komodo experts. These resources include analytical templates, code sets, and dashboards that facilitate the exploration, analysis, and generation of insights, enabling swift responses to specific business queries. Users can then create interactive visualizations and dashboards to convey unique insights in easily understandable formats throughout the company.

2. Integrate and Manage Data Assets: Enhance the value of data investments by merging datasets aligned with organizational priorities and therapeutic areas. Users can expand the insight-generating capabilities of Komodo’s Healthcare Map™, the most accurate source of de-identified patient-level data in the U.S., by connecting it with isolated data repositories and proprietary patient-level data sources, offering a more detailed view of patient populations, treatment paths, outcomes, and disease trends.

3. Streamline Data Science Workflows: Leverage Komodo’s fully integrated development environment, designed for advanced data scientists and engineers working on cutting-edge Life Sciences solutions. Access de-identified patient-level data within a secure, flexible, end-to-end cloud development environment, utilizing programming languages and frameworks of choice to build new applications, APIs, and algorithms on top of Komodo’s AI-powered platform, benefiting from nine years of AI expertise.

The first MapLab module will become available in Q4 2023, followed by additional modules in early 2024. MapLab, Komodo’s primary self-service insights and analytics tool, will soon introduce an AI analytics assistant. This assistant, powered by Komodo’s platform and advanced language models, will boost user productivity by providing tailored dashboards, insights, and information tailored to their unique business needs. These copilot capabilities will extend the convenience of analytics and insights discovery to users both within and outside of the MapLab environment.