The Bio Report

Rural counties in the United States have seen a steady loss of hospital-based obstetric services. A new study published in JAMA that looked at nearly 5 million births in almost 1,100 rural U.S. counties found a connection between the loss of these services and eroding outcomes for newborns and their mothers. We spoke to Carrie Henning-Smith, deputy director of the University of Minnesota’s Rural Health Research Center and co-author of the JAMA study, about the findings, their implications, and what can be done to address eroding healthcare for women giving birth in rural America.

The convergence of technology and life sciences, changing consumer behavior, and increasing pricing pressures on drug and device makers are forcing these companies to rethink business models and how they derive value from their products, according to a new EY Progressions 2018 report. The report argues that life sciences companies will no longer be able to rely exclusively on product-centric innovations, which face diminishing returns as health systems wrestle with cost constraints. We spoke to Pamela Spence, EY global life sciences industry leader, about the report, what a growing trend in collaborations between technology and healthcare companies may say about where the industry is heading, and why the future of life sciences companies may be as health technology companies.

Matthew Levy worked in the biopharmaceutical industry in human resources when he was confronted with a life-changing event. A doctor told him he had advanced cancer and just 90 days to live. An aggressive treatment regimen saved him, but it also led Levy to rethink his life. Now a motivational speaker and executive coach, Levy is trying to help others who may have settled into safe and comfortable jobs but find them unfulfilling. We spoke to Levy about his experiences, how it changed him, and what others could do to make turning points in their lives without having to face death.

Despite the often remarkable advances in cancer therapies, radiation is still widely used to treat a variety of cancers. Nanobiotix believes it can make radiation therapy more effective by injecting its nanomedicines into tumors to amplify the effects of radiation without damaging healthy tissue. We spoke to Laurent Levy, CEO of Nanobiotix, about the company’s technology, how it works, and why it may be broadly applicable to a wide range of cancers.

As medical advances have helped extend lifespans, older people still experience a decline in quality of life in their later years as a result of diseases associated with aging. This can cause a loss of independence, isolation, and suffering. The Biogerontology Research Foundation, a United Kingdom-based nonprofit, is funding work to understand the molecular and cellular processes of aging and develop biotechnological interventions to halt or reverse damage from it. We spoke to Franco Cortese, deputy director of The Biogerontology Research Foundation, about a new report it’s issued that characterizes the longevity and geroscience landscape today, areas of research that hold promise, and why aging might best be thought of as a disease.

Caelum Biosciences, a Fortress Biotech company, is a clinical-stage biotech developing treatments for rare and life-threatening diseases. It’s lead therapeutic in development is a novel antibody to treat patients with amyloid light chain amyloidosis, a rare disorder of the bone marrow that causes misfolded proteins to accumulate in tissue and organs throughout the body and cause damage. We spoke to Michael Spector, president and CEO of Caelum, about the company’s business model, its lead therapeutic, and how the competitive landscape for a rare disease therapy may shape development strategies.

Incubators create success stories, but usually aren’t thought of as success stories themselves. The newly renamed MBC Biolabs, which started with humble beginnings in a utility closet as the first technology incubator in the University of California system, has been a big success by meeting the needs of entrepreneurial scientists. We spoke to Doug Crawford, managing director of Mission Bay Capital and General Manager MBC Biolabs, about its recent rebranding, how it operates, and its plans for expansion.

Across the continuum of drug discovery, development, and delivery there’s a growing effort to incorporate the patient perspective into the process. Last year FasterCures, the nonprofit focused on accelerating and improving medical research, held a multi-stakeholder workshop to discuss the challenges and opportunities of patient reported outcomes and how to make them a more powerful tool for incorporating patients’ perspectives into R&D and care decision-making. A new report from the organization captures the results of that workshop. We spoke to Cynthia Grossman, director of science of patient input at FasterCures, about the report, why patient reported outcome measures and patient-centric outcomes are not one and the same, and what can be done to better reflect what matters to patients.

CellMax Life believes it can transform cancer diagnostics with its affordable non-invasive tests for early cancer detection. The company says with its platform it has been able to overcome the challenge of detecting rare circulating tumor cells in pre-cancer and early-stage cancer patients when the disease can be successfully treated. We spoke to Atul Sharan, co-founder and CEO of CellMax, about the challenges of liquid biopsies, how the company’s technology works, and why he thinks it has the potential to change the way cancer is diagnosed today.

The development of a biomarker to identify people with prostate cancer increased the diagnosis of the disease, but did little to suggest the appropriate course of treatment for individual patients. Kenneth Pienta, professor of urology and co-director of the Johns Hopkins University InHealth Signature Initiative, is trying to change that by using surveillance and extensive data gathering to continuously stratify patients and refine treatment approaches. Pienta, who will be speaking at the Precision Medicine World Conference in Mountain View, California January 22 to 24, discussed InHealth, how its transforming the treatment of prostate cancer patients, and why it may be a model for applying precision medicine approaches to a broad range of diseases.

A surge in merger and acquisition activity in the life sciences is expected this year, according to a new report from EY. The company annual M&A Firepower Report says increased competition, new sources of capital, and the change in U.S. corporate tax laws will drive greater dealmaking in the sector. We spoke to Jeff Greene, EY global life sciences transaction advisory services leader, about the report, the drivers of the activity, and why nontraditional players in the sector may be in a better position to make a splash in 2018.

We conclude our biotech review-preview series with our final installment this week as we take a look at the year ahead as the industry readies for the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference. We spoke to Jon Gardner, U.S. News Editor for EP Vantage, about the EP Vantage 2018 Preview(http://bit.ly/2CT2RDP), the outlook for big-value drug launches, and whether dealmaking or clinical success will drive stock prices in 2018. As a note, this podcast was recorded prior to Spark Therapeutics announcement of its pricing for its gene therapy Luxturna.

In the second installment of our three-part review-preview series of podcasts, we continue an annual tradition by sitting down with Adam Feuerstein, senior biotech writer for STAT, to discuss the year that was in biotech and what to look for in 2018. We talked to Feuerstein about the themes that emerged in 2017, his annual best and worst biotech CEOs, and what he’ll be watching at JPMorgan and beyond.

It’s that time of year when we begin to look back and think ahead. Starting with this week’s interview, we begin a three-part review-preview series to discuss the year in biotech and what to look for in 2018. In 2017, there were exciting developments in the area of immune-oncology with the approval of the first Car-T therapies and Gilead’s acquisition of Kite Pharma. As the year approached the finish line, investors got to view data from a range of studies at the American Society of Hematology meeting in Atlanta, setting the stage for 2018 when data from studies looking at combinations of immunotherapies will be closely watched. We spoke to Brad Loncar, CEO of Loncar investments, about the state of immunotherapies, what caught his attention at the ASH meeting, and what he’ll be watching in 2018.

Last month Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Proteus Digital Health won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for what’s being hailed as the first digital pill. Abilify Mycite, a drug-device combination that marries Otsuka’s Abilify, used to treat schizophrenia, with Proteus’ ingestible sensor, wearable sensor, and smartphone app intended to monitor and improve compliance. We spoke to George Savage, chief medical officer of Proteus, about the technology, other potential uses, and how it may help address the quality and cost of healthcare.

Climate change and the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events carry a toll on human health. Not only do floods, hurricanes, and other similar phenomenon cause death and injury, they also create long-term health effects. Jesse Bell, a research scientist at the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies at North Carolina State University recently examined the issues in an article in the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association. We spoke to Bell about the health consequences of these weather events, the challenges they create for public health systems to plan and prepare, and why new research is needed to better understand the relationship between these events and human health.

Tom Frieden, after eights years of running the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is turning his sights to global health. Frieden has set a goal of saving 100 million lives from cardiovascular disease in low- and middle-income countries by applying proven strategies used in developed countries. His program Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies, will also work to prevent infectious disease epidemics and pandemics by strengthening public health systems in these nations. We spoke to Frieden about the initiative, whether strategies that worked in the developed world can be translated to low- and middle-income countries, and what it will take to be successful.

A public-private consortium is seeking to cut the time it takes to discover and advance new cancer therapies to the clinic to one year from the six years it takes on average today. Accelerating Therapeutics for Opportunities in Medicine, or ATOM, brings together scientists from government, academia, and industry with the ambitious goal of harnessing supercomputers to transform cancer drug discovery into a rapid process that can determine molecules that will be safe and effective before advancing them to human clinical trials. We spoke to Michelle Arkin, a member of ATOM and associate professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco’s school of Pharmacy, about the consortium, the approach its taking, and why it may alter the way therapies for a much broader range of diseases than cancer are developed.

Merger and acquisitions may be a path to creating value for life science companies, but talks can breakdown because of flaws in management thinking that skew their sense of the value of their company. Oded Ben-Joseph, managing director of Outcome Capital, applied behavioral economics to the M&A front to discuss how cognitive biases can derail M&A transactions in an article in the September issue of In Vivo. We spoke to Ben-Joseph about cognitive biases, why the life sciences sector is particularly prone to the problem, and what executives can do to minimize their effects.

The growing problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics represents a significant public health threat. That’s been made worse by the dearth of new therapies that have come to market. AmpliPhi Biosciences is developing bacteriophages, viruses that infect and kill bacteria, to provide a way to target drug-resistant bugs. We spoke to Paul Grint, CEO of AmpliPhi about the health need, AmpliPhi’s approach, and why harnessing these natural killers of bacteria may provide a promising source of new therapeutics.