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Archive for the ‘Artificial Intelligence in Medicine – Applications in Therapeutics’ Category

Real Time Conference Coverage: Advancing Precision Medicine Conference, Afternoon Session October 4 2025

Real Time Conference Coverage: Advancing Precision Medicine Conference, Afternoon Session  October 4 2025

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intellegence will be covering this conference LIVE over X.com at

@pharma_BI

@StephenJWillia2

@AVIVA1950

@AdvancingPM

using the following meeting hashtags

#AdvancingPM #precisionmedicine #WINSYMPO2025

1:40 – 2:30

AI in Precision Medicine

Dr. Ganhui Lan
Dr. Xiaoyan Wang
Dr. Ahmad P. Tafti
Jen Gilburg

Jen Gilburg (moderator)Deputy Secretary of Technology and Entrepreneurship, Dept. of Community and Economic Development, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

  • AI will help reduce time for drug development especially in early phase of discovery but eventually help in all phases
  • Ganhui: for drug regulators might be more amenable to AI in clinical trials; AI may be used differently by clinicians
  • nonprofit in Philadelphia using AI to repurpose drugs (this site has posted on this and article will be included here)
  • Ganhui: top challenge of AI in Pharma; rapid evolution of AI and have to have core understanding of your needs and dependencies; realistic view of what can be done; AI has to have iterative learning; also huge vertical challenge meaning how can we allign the use of AI through the healthcare vertical layer chain like clinicians, payers, etc.
  • Ganhui sees a challenge for health companies to understand how to use AI in business to technology; AI in AI companies is different need than AI in healthcare companies
  • 95% of AI projects not successful because most projects are very discrete use

2:00-2:20

Building Precision Oncology Infrastructure in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Razelle Kurzrock, MD

Sewanti Limaye, MD, Director, Medical & Precision Oncology; Director Clinical and Translational Oncology Research, Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital & Research Centre, Mumbai, India; Founder, Nova Precision AI; Co-Founder, Iylon Precision Oncology; Co-Chair, Asia Pacific Coalition Against Lung Cancer; Co-Chair,  Asia Pacific Immuno-Oncology; Member,  WIN Consortium

  • globally 60 precision initiatives but there really are because many in small countries
  • three out of five individuals in India die of cancer
  • precision medicine is a must and a hub and spoke model is needed in these places; Italy does this hub and spoke; spokes you enable the small places and bring them into the network so they know how and have access to precision medicine
  • in low income countries the challenge starts with biopsy: then diagnosis and biomarker is issue; then treatment decision a problem as they may not have access to molecular tumor boards
  • prevention is always a difficult task in LMICs (low income)
  • you have ten times more patients in India than in US (triage can be insurmountable)
  • ICGA Foundation: Indian Cancer Genome Atlas
  • in India mutational frequencies vary with geographical borders like EGFR mutations or KRAS mutations
  • genomic landscape of ovarian cancer in India totally different than in TCGA data
  • even different pathways are altered in ovarian cancer seen in North America than in India
  • MAY mean that biomarker panels need to be adjusted based on countries used in
  • the molecular data has to be curated for the India cases to be submitted to a tumor board
  • twenty diagnostic tests in market like TruCheck for Indian market; uses liquid biopsy
  • they are also tailoring diagnostic and treatment for India getting FDA fast track approvals

2:20-2:40

Co-targeting KIT/PDGRFA and Genomic Integrity in Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors

Razelle Kurzrock, MD

Lori Rink, PhD, Associate ProfessorFox Chase Cancer Center

  • GIST are most common nesychymal tumor in GI tract
  • used to be misdiagnosed; was considered a leimyosarcoma
  • very asymptomatic tumors and not good prognosis
  • very refractory to genotoxic therapies
  • RTK KIT/PDGFRA gain of function mutations
  • Gleevec imatinib for unresectable GIST however vast majority of even responders become resistant to therapy and cancer returns
  • there is a mutation map for hotspot mutations and sensitivity for gleevec
  • however resistance emerged to ripretinib; in ATP binding pocket
  • over treatment get a polyclonal resistance
  • performed a kinome analysis; Wee1 looked like a potential target
  • mouse studies (80 day) showed good efficacy
  • avapiritinib ahs some neurotox and used in PDGFRA mut GIST model which is resistant to imitinib
  • but if use Wee1 inhibitor with TKI can lower dose of avapiritinib
  • cotargeting KIT/PDGFRA and WEE1 increases replicative stress
  • they are using PDX models to test these combinations
  • combination creates genomic instability

 

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Real Time Coverage Morning Session on Precision Oncology: Advancing Precision Medicine Annual Conference, Philadelphia PA November 2 2024

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

9:20-9:50

How Can We Close the Clinical Practice Gaps in Precision Medicine?

Susanne Munksted, Diaceutics

Studies are showing that genetic tests are being ordered at a sufficient rate however it appears there are problems in interpretation and developing treatment plans based on omics testing results

 

  • 30 % of patients in past and now currently half of all patients are not being given the proper treatment based on genomic testing results (ASCO)
  • E.g. only 1.5% with NTRK fusions received a NTRK based therapy (this was > 4000 patients receiving wrong therapy)
  • A lung oncologist may only see one patient with NTRK fusion in three years

 

Precision Medicine Practice Gaps

48% of oncologist surveyed  agreed pathologist needs to be more informed and relevant in the decision making process with regard to tests needing to be ordered

95% said need to flip cost issues ; what does it cost not to get a test … i.e. what is the cost of the wrong therapy

We need a new commercialization model for therapeutic development for this new era of “n of one” patient

9:50-10:15

Implementation of a CLIA-based Reverse Phase Protein Array Assay for Precision Oncology Applications: Proteomics and Phosphoproteomics at the Bedside (CME Eligible)

Emanuel Petricoin, George Mason University

There are some tumor markers approved by FDA that cant just be measured by NGS and are correlated with a pathologic complete response

 

  • Many point mutations will have no actionable drug
  • Many alterations are post-genomic meaning there is a post translational component to many prognostic biomarkers
  • Prevalence of point mutation with no actionable mutation is a limit of NGS
  • It is important to look at phospho protein spectrum as a potential biomarker

 

Reverse phase protein proteomic analysis

  • Made into CLIA based array
  • They trained centers around the US on the technology and analysis
  • Basing proteomics or protein markers by traditional IHC requires much antibody validation so if the mass spectrometry field can catch up it would be very powerful
  • With multiple MRM.MS there is too low abundance of phosphoproteins to allow for good detection

 

They  conducted the I-SPY2 trial for breast cancer and determining if phosphoproteins could be a good biomarker panel

  • They found they could predict a HER2 response better than NGS
  • There were patients who were predicted HER2 negative that actually had an activated HER2 signaling pathway by proteomics so NGS must have had a series of false negatives
  • HER2 co phosphorylation predicts pathologic complete response and predicts therapy by herceptin
  • They found patients classified as HER2 negative by FISH were HER2 positive by proteomics and had HER2 activation

10:15-11:10

Liquid Biopsy MRD to Escalate or De-escalate Therapy (CME Eligible)

Adrian Lee

Adrian Lee, UPMC

Marija Balic, UPMC

Howard McLeod

Howard McLeod, Utah Tech University

Muhammed, Murtaza, University of Wisconsin-Madison

 

11:15-11:25  PRODUCT PRESENTATION  204A

SpaceIQ™ – Powering Next Generation Precision Therapeutics with AI-Driven Spatial Biomarkers

Dusty Majumdar, PredxBio 

Single Cell and Spatial Omics

 

  • Single cell transcriptomics technology have been scaled up very nicely over the past ten years
  • Spatial informatics field is lacking in innovations
  • Can get a terabyte worth of data from analysis of one slide

11:25-11:35  PRODUCT PRESENTATION  204C

10x Genomics

11:40-12:35

Transcriptomics and AI in Transforming Precision Diagnosis

Maher Albitar, Genomic Testing Cooperative

Transciptomica and AI:Transforming Precision diagnosis

-The Genomics Testing Coopererative at www.genomictestingcooperative.com

 

Advantages of transcriptomics

– mutation frequency and allele variant detection now at 80% (higher sensitivity in mutation detection)

 

– transcriptomics has good detection of chromosomal translocations

– great surrogate for IHC and detect splicing alterations

– can use AI to predict % of PDL1 in tumor cells versus immune cells

– they have developed a software UMAP (uniform manifold approximation and projection) to supervise cluster analysis

– the group has used AI to predict prognosis and survival using transcriptomics data

Marija Balic, UPMC

Andrew Pecora, Hackensack University Medical Center 

12:35-1:00

The Impact of Multi-Omics in the Context of the APOLLO-2 Moonshot Program (CME Eligible)

 

 

Read Full Post »

10th annual World Medical Innovation Forum (WMIF) Monday, Sept. 23–Wednesday, Sept. 25 at the Encore Boston Harbor in Boston

Dr. Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN, Founder

Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence Group, LLC, Doing Business As LPBI Group, Newton, MA

will be in attendance

covering this event in REAL TIME for PharmaceuticalIntelligence.com and WMIF organizers

#WMIF2024

@Pharma_BI

@AVIVA1950

CLAIMER: Live coverage in REAL TIME on X.com for 9/23/2024

my two X.com accounts had exceeded tweeting volume capacity and were inactivated to verify if I am a person or a BOT. Account authentication reported SOmething went wrong, try later.

  • 9/23/2024 contacted Customer Services at X.com for reactivated these two accounts

 

For Speaker’s quotes on 9/23/2024 from 4PM EST to end on the day

  • see below on WordPress.com by Date, Time, Session Name and Speaker Name

For Speaker’s quotes on 9/24/2024 from 8AM to 5:30PM

  • see below on WordPress.com by Date, Time, Session Name and Speaker Name

For Speaker’s quotes on 9/25/2024 from 8AM to 12:35PM

  • see below on WordPress.com by Date, Time, Session Name and Speaker Name

UPDATE on reactivation of handles on X.com will be posted, here.

Usage of X.com will resume after Handle reactivation by X.com

 

UPDATED on 9/26/2024

Unmet Needs Panel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6hk7yavBzk

100+ Mass General Brigham Leading Experts Identify

Top Unmet Needs in Healthcare

Project from Harvard Medical School-affiliated clinicians and scientists in the Mass General Brigham healthcare system stimulates new consideration, urgency regarding

innovation in life sciences, healthcare

Top 10 List Announced at World Medical Innovation Forum

BOSTON, MA September 25, 2024 – Some of the most vexing challenges and transformational opportunities in healthcare are included in a new list, “Top Unmet Needs in Healthcare” released by leading experts at Mass General Brigham. Identified by more than 100 Harvard Medical School faculty at Mass General Brigham, the findings range from the need to expand and accelerate rare disease treatment, to the coming “gray tsunami” of aging patients and the implications for patient care, delivery, and technology. The project, revealed at the 10th annual World Medical Innovation Forum, is meant to stimulate new consideration and urgency regarding solving and advancing these issues for improved patient care.

Views from Leading Clinicians, Researchers, and Practitioners in Academic Medicine

The Top Unmet Needs emerge from structured one-on-one discussions with more than 100 Harvard faculty who practice medicine and conduct research at Mass General Brigham, the largest hospital system-based research enterprise in the U.S., with an annual research budget exceeding $2 billion, and five of the nation’s top hospitals according to US News & World Report.

Through one-on-one discussions with these key opinion leaders from diverse clinical and research fields, and subsequent analyses by internal teams of experts, Mass General Brigham has identified the following top 10 unmet clinical needs:

#1. Preparing for the ‘Gray Tsunami’

The need for better tools and therapies aimed at caring for geriatric populations and maintaining geriatric independence, with a particular focus on expanded hospital-at-home capabilities, and the need to better understand the pathways that lead to chronic and acute disease in geriatric patients to enable better and more proactive treatment.

#2. Defining and Maintaining Brain Health

The need for a model of brain health and neurological care that clearly defines not only what brain health is but also integrates our current understanding of the mechanisms and phases of neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases; enables better and earlier diagnoses and treatment; and propels the development of therapies that target these mechanisms and phases.

#3. A Paradigm Shift in Cancer Treatment

The need for a new framework for therapeutic development in cancer that is focused on improving curability as opposed to an exclusive focus on the development of drugs for metastatic disease. This

framework also requires effective tools for early-stage cancer detection across the board in all cancers, but especially in lung, ovarian, pancreatic, and GI cancers (esophagus, stomach and colon).

#4. Targeting Fibrosis, a Shared Culprit in Disease

The need for therapeutics that target fibrosis (tissue scarring), which is responsible for a significant percentage of deaths worldwide, representing diseases of the lung, liver, kidney, heart, and skin.

#5. New Approaches for Infectious Disease in a Changing World

The need for novel strategies for the rapid diagnoses, treatment, and even prevention of antibiotic-resistant infections, and the need for the next generation of globally deployable vaccines to enable pandemic preparedness.

#6. Striving for Equity in Healthcare

The need to radically rethink how, when, and where patients interact with healthcare services to optimize healthcare access and efficiency without diminishing its effectiveness, and to proactively meet the needs of currently underserved populations.

#7. Riding the Wave of Clinical Data

The need to expand the scope of available clinical data to include historically understudied populations (including women) and to model and implement a cohesive, dynamic data “stream,” which flows as patients do between the different phases of health and clinical care, enabling comparisons of patients to their previously healthy selves and the development of AI/ML approaches to harness these data to improve diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment.

#8. A Systems-Level View of Human Disease

The need to rethink how we understand and treat disease — not only from an organ-specific standpoint but from a whole-body, systems-level view — and to fully elucidate the roles that inflammation and immune pathways play in autoimmune and infectious diseases and their effects on chronic and acute diseases in diverse human systems, such as the cardiovascular/circulatory and nervous systems.

#9. A New Approach to Psychiatric Disease

The need for novel treatments for psychiatric disease, improved biomarkers and minimally invasive and ambulatory ways of measuring them, and more productive interactions with industry to advance new therapies to the clinic. This includes hybrid therapies (therapies that combine elements such as talk therapy, novel biomarkers, and pharmacological treatments) as well as new diagnostic and treatment modalities, such as psychedelic therapeutics and precision psychiatry.

#10. Charting a Course in Rare Disease Treatment

The need for viable treatments for the 7,000 identified rare diseases, especially the roughly 70% of such diseases that are genetic and the effects of which are first observed in early childhood.

The Unmet Needs list also include the following honorable mentions which rose to significant rankings in the analysis:

  • Driving Innovation in Chronic Disease: Improved Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention
  • A New Era of Obesity Medicine
  • A New Generation of Pain Treatments
  • Unlocking Novel Treatments for the Skin

Overarching Themes

Addressing unmet clinical needs involves solving a number of common challenges, including commercialization hurdles, regulatory considerations, and funding. The Mass General Brigham project identified overarching themes to help address these challenges and support innovation across multiple sectors. These include:

  • Taking a systems view of human disease and the practice of system-medicine
  • Developing a global view of infectious disease, including antimicrobial resistance
  • An expansion in high-quality, real-world data that closes gaps in current data (particularly for women and other underserved populations) and ensures that data sets are sufficiently enabling for AI/ML
  • Improving health and healthcare across key populations, including geriatrics and rare genetic disease
  • Addressing major diseases of the brain, including both neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric conditions; these include Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, as well as psychiatric and mental health disorders
  • Opening an era of precision medicine across disease areas that includes early diagnosis, treating staged disease, and biomarker discovery and utilization

Panel co-chairs José Florez, Physician-in-Chief and Co-Chair of the MGB Department of Medicine and the Jackson Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Bruce Levy, Physician-In-Chief and Co-Chair of the MGB Department of Medicine and the Parker B. Francis Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, noted how the observations of a broad and representative set of faculty help illuminate the innovation landscape ahead.

“As a leader in patient care and healthcare innovation, our goal is to build on the legacy of research and discovery that has shaped the hospitals of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system for more than a hundred years, and continue to bring breakthroughs forward that can help solve pressing needs,” said Dr. Florez.

Dr. Levy added that “This is a roadmap for the future that can inform discussions happening throughout the healthcare and investment ecosystem regarding the future of medicine.”

More than 2000 decision-makers from healthcare, industry, finance and government attended the World Medical Innovation Forum this week in Boston. A premier global event, the Forum highlights leading innovations in medicine and transformative advancements in patient care.

###

About Mass General Brigham

Mass General Brigham is an integrated academic health care system, uniting great minds to solve the hardest problems in medicine for our communities and the world. Mass General Brigham connects a full continuum of care across a system of academic medical centers, community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, physician networks, community health centers, home care, and long-term care services. Mass General Brigham is a nonprofit organization committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Mass General Brigham is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations with several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals. For more information, please visit massgeneralbrigham.org.

Contact: Tracy Doyle Mass General Brigham Innovation

(262) 227-5514

Tdoyle5@mgb.org

SOURCE

From: “Doyle, Tracy” <tdoyle5@mgb.org>
Date: Thursday, September 26, 2024 at 10:19 AM
Cc: “Card, Matthew” <matthew.card@bofa.com>
Subject: Unmet Needs in Healthcare — Press Release and link to panel

 

@@@@@@@

Invitation as MEDIA

From: “Doyle, Tracy” <tdoyle5@mgb.org>
Date: Wednesday, August 14, 2024 at 4:04 PM
Cc: “Doyle, Tracy” <tdoyle5@mgb.org>, “Card, Matthew” <matthew.card@bofa.com>
Subject: Media Invite: World Medical Innovation Forum, Sept. 23-25, Boston — Hundreds of clinical experts, industry, investment leaders

 

Media Invite: World Medical Innovation Forum: Monday, Sept. 23—Wednesday, Sept. 25, Boston

At the intersection of innovation and investment in healthcare

Join Us!

Register Now: WMIF24 Media Registration

Mass General Brigham, one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers, is pleased to invite reporters to the 10th annual World Medical Innovation Forum (WMIF) Monday, Sept. 23–Wednesday, Sept. 25 at the Encore Boston Harbor in Boston. The event features expert discussions of scientific and investment trends for some of the hottest areas in healthcare, including

  • GLP-1s,
  • the cancer care revolution,
  • generative AI-enabled care paths,
  • xenotransplant,
  • community health,
  • hospital at home, and
  • therapeutic psychedelics, among many others.

 

The agenda includes nearly 175 executive speakers from healthcare, pharma, venture, start-ups, and the front lines of care, including many of Mass General Brigham’s Harvard Medical School-affiliated researchers and clinicians who this year will host 20+ focused sessions. Bank of America, presenting sponsor of the Forum, will provide additional expert insights on the investment landscape associated with healthcare innovation.

 

Forum highlights include:

 

1:1 and panel interviews with leading CEOs and government officials including:

  • Stéphane Bancel, CEO, Moderna
  • Albert Bourla, PhD, CEO, Pfizer
  • Marc Casper, CEO, Thermo Fisher
  • Deepak Chopra, MD, Founder, The Chopra Foundation
  • Scott Gottlieb, MD, PhD, Former Commissioner, FDA (2017-2019)
  • Maura Healey, Governor, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
  • David Hyman, MD, CMO, Eli Lilly
  • Haim Israel, Head of Global Thematic Investing Research, BofA Global Research
  • Reshma Kewalramani, MD, CEO, Vertex
  • Anne Klibanski, MD, President and CEO, Mass General Brigham
  • Peter Marks, MD, PhD, Director, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, FDA
  • Tadaaki Taniguchi, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer, Astellas Pharma
  • Christophe Weber, CEO, Takeda
  • Renee Wegrzyn, PhD, Director, ARPA-H

 

Expert panels including:

  • Oncology’s New Paradigm
  • Gene Therapies for Rare Diseases
  • Future of Metabolic Therapies
  • Digital Transformation
  • Biologic Revolution in Radiotherapies
  • Cell Therapies for Autoimmune Diseases
  • Hospital Venture Funds

 

Leading biotech and venture speakers from companies including:

  • Abata Therapeutics
  • Atlas Venture
  • Be Biopharma
  • Everly Health
  • Flagship Pioneering
  • Fractyl Health
  • MindMed
  • Mirador Therapeutics
  • Regor Therapeutics
  • RH Capital
  • Transcend Therapeutics


Exclusive programming:  

  • First Look – 15 rapid-fire presentations on the latest research from leading Mass General Brigham scientists
  • Un-Met Clinical Needs – 100+ key opinion leaders in healthcare weigh in on the top un-met clinical needs in medicine today
  • Emerging Tech Zone – Hands-on exploration of some of the latest digital and AI-based healthcare technologies

 

Our program keeps growing — explore the current Forum agenda and list of speakers.

FORUM AGENDA

SOURCE

https://2024.worldmedicalinnovation.org/agenda/

Monday, September 23, 2024

    • 7:00 AM – 8:30 AM

      Picasso Foyer

    • 7:00 AM – 5:00 PM

      Rotunda

    • 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM

      Picasso Ballroom

      First Look

      First Look: 14 rapid fire presentations

      Moderators

      Giles Boland, MD

      President, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization;

      Philip H. Cook Distinguished Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School

      Marcela del Carmen, MD

      President, Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts General Physicians Organization (MGPO);

      Executive Vice President, Mass General Brigham;

      Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Harvard Medical School

      Presenters

      Natalie Artzi, PhD

      Associate Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School

      Yolonda Colson, MD, PhD

      Chief, Division of Thoracic Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital;

      Hermes C. Grillo Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

      Nobuhiko Hata, PhD

      Director, Surgical Navigation and Robotics Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

      Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School

      John Hanna, MD, PhD

      Associate Professor, Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School

      Leigh Hochberg, MD, PhD

      Director of Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery, Massachusetts General Hospital;

      Senior Lecturer on Neurology, Harvard Medical School

      Daphne Holt, MD, PhD

      Director of the Resilience and Prevention Program, Massachusetts General Hospital;

      Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

      Ole Isacson, MD-PhD

      Founding Director, Neuroregeneration Research Institute, McLean Hospital;

      Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School

      Farouc Jaffer, MD, PhD

      Director, Coronary Intervention, Massachusetts General Hospital;

      Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

      Albert Kim, MD

      Assistant Physician, Mass General Cancer Center;

      Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

      Vesela Kovacheva, MD, PhD

      Director of Translational and Clinical Research, Mass General Brigham;

      Assistant Professor of Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School

      Mark Poznansky, MD, PhD

      Director, Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center, Massachusetts General Hospital;

      Steve and Deborah Gorlin MGH Research Scholar;

      Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

      Daniel Solomon, MD

      Matthew H. Liang Distinguished Chair in Arthritis and Population Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

      Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

      Scott Solomon, MD

      Director, Clinical Trials Outcomes Center;

      Edward D. Frohlich Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Pathophysiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

      Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

      Guillermo Tearney, MD, PhD

      Principal Investigator, Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital;

      Remondi Family Endowed MGH Research Institute Chair;

      Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School

      Raul Uppot, MD

      Interventional Radiologist, Massachusetts General Hospital;

      Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

      David Walt, PhD

      Professor of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

      Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard Medical School

    • 10:00 AM – 10:20 AM

    • 10:20 AM – 10:30 AM

    • 10:30 AM – 10:55 AM

      Fireside

      Fireside Chat

      Moderator

      Keith Flaherty, MD

      Director of Clinical Research, Mass General Cancer Center;

      Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

      Panelist

      Albert Bourla, PhD

      Chairman & CEO, Pfizer

    • 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM

Concurrent Events

  • 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM

    Oncology’s New Paradigm

    Moderators

    Keith Flaherty, MD

    Director of Clinical Research, Mass General Cancer Center;

    Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

    Jason Zemansky, PhD

    SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Panelists

    Jonathan Carlson, MD, PhD

    Director of Chemistry, Center for Systems Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

    Gad Getz, PhD

    Director of Bioinformatics, Krantz Center for Cancer Research and Department of Pathology;

    Paul C. Zamecnik Chair in Cancer Research, Mass General Cancer Center;

    Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School

    Russell Jenkins, MD, PhD

    Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Mass General Cancer Center, Center for Melanoma;

    Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

    Gregory Simon

    President, Simonovation

    Shannon Stott, PhD

    Associate Investigator, Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research and Mass General Cancer Center;

    d’Arbeloff Research Scholar, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Associate Investigator, Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research Harvard Medical School

  • 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM

    GLP-1s: How Far Will They Go?

    Moderators

    Tazeen Ahmad

    SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Fatima Cody Stanford, MD

    Obesity Medicine Physician Scientist, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

    Panelists

    Caroline Apovian, MD

    Co-Director, Center for Weight Management and Wellness, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

    Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

    Vanita Aroda, MD

    Director, Diabetes Clinical Research, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

    Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

    Paul LaViolette

    Managing Partner & COO, SV Health Investors

  • 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM

    Generative AI: Breakthrough Research and Limitations

    Moderators

    Adam Landman, MD

    Chief Information Officer & SVP, Digital, Mass General Brigham;

    Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School

    Alec Stranahan, PhD

    SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Panelists

    Katherine Andriole, PhD

    Director of Academic Research and Education, Mass General Brigham Data Science Office;

    Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

    David Blumenthal, MD

    Professor of Practice of Public Health and Health Policy, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health;

    Research Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School of Government;

    Samuel O. Thier Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School

    Faisal Mahmood, PhD

    Associate Professor, Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School

    William Morris, MD

    Chief Medical Information Officer, Google Cloud

  • 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM

    Gene and Cell Therapy’s Unlimited Potential

    Moderators

    Roger Hajjar, MD

    Director, Gene & Cell Therapy Institute, Mass General Brigham

    Charlie Yang, PhD

    Large/SMid-Cap Biotech and Major Pharma Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Nathan Yozwiak, PhD

    Head of Research, Gene and Cell Therapy Institute, Mass General Brigham

    Panelists

    Samarth Kulkarni, PhD

    CEO, CRISPR Therapeutics

    Peter Marks, MD, PhD

    Director, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, FDA

    Marcela Maus, MD, PhD

    Director of Cellular Therapy and Paula O’Keeffe Chair in Cancer Research, Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research and Mass General Cancer Center;

    Associate Director, Gene and Cell Therapy Institute, Mass General Brigham;

    Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

    Joanne Smith-Farrell, PhD

    CEO & Director, Be Biopharma

  • 11:00 AM – 11:45 AM

    Xenotransplant: Game Changing Organ Replacement

    Moderators

    Jason Gerberry

    Specialty Pharma and SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Joren Madsen, MD, PhD

    Director, MGH Transplant Center;

    Paul S. Russell/Warner-Lambert Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

    Panelists

    Tatsuo Kawai, MD, PhD

    Director of the Legorreta Center for Clinical Transplantation Tolerance,

    A.Benedict Cosimi Chair in Transplant Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

    Richard Pierson III, MD

    Scientific Director, Center for Transplantation Sciences, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

    Leonardo Riella, MD, PhD

    Medical Director of Kidney Transplantation, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Harold and Ellen Danser Endowed Chair in Transplantation, Harvard Medical School

Concurrent Events

  • 12:00 PM – 12:45 PM

    Future of Cancer Care

    Moderator

    Alec Stranahan, PhD

    SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Panelists

    Gerard Doherty, MD

    Surgeon-in-Chief, Mass General Brigham Cancer;

    Surgeon-in-Chief, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

    Moseley Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

    Daphne Haas-Kogan, MD

    Chief, Enterprise Radiation Oncology, Mass General Brigham;

    Professor, Harvard Medical School

    Benjamin Kann, MD

    Assistant Professor, Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School

    David Ryan, MD

    Physician-in-Chief, Mass General Brigham Cancer;

    Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

  • 12:00 PM – 12:45 PM

    Generative AI Enabled Care Paths

    Moderators

    Adam Ron

    Health Care Facilities and Managed Care Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Marc Succi, MD

    Executive Director, Mass General Brigham MESH Incubator;

    Associate Chair of Innovation & Commercialization, Mass General Brigham Radiology;

    Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

    Panelists

    Christopher Longhurst, MD

    Chief Medical & Digital Officer, UC San Diego Health

    Rebecca Mishuris, MD

    Chief Medical Information Officer, Mass General Brigham;

    Member of the Faculty, Harvard Medical School

    Shiv Rao, MD

    CEO & Founder, Abridge

    Alkesh Shah

    Head of US Equity Software Research, BofA Global Research

  • 12:00 PM – 12:45 PM

    Transforming Care in a Resource Limited Era

    Moderator

    Niyum Gandhi

    CFO & Treasurer, Mass General Brigham

    Panelists

    Fritz François, MD

    Executive Vice President and Vice Dean, Chief of Hospital Operations, NYU Langone Health

    Susan Huang, MD

    EVP, Chief Executive, Providence Clinical Network, Providence Southern CA

    Ron Walls, MD

    Chief Operating Officer, Mass General Brigham;

    Neskey Family Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School

  • 12:00 PM – 12:45 PM

    Cardiovascular Pipeline Renewal

    Moderators

    Jason Gerberry

    Specialty Pharma and SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Calum MacRae, MD, PhD

    Vice Chair for Scientific Innovation, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

    Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

    Panelists

    Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, DMSc

    Chief Scientific Advisor, Novo Nordisk

    David Grayzel, MD

    Partner, Atlas Venture

    Christoph Westphal, MD, PhD

    General Partner, Longwood Fund

    Deborah Wexler, MD

    Chief, Diabetes Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

  • 12:45 PM – 1:00 PM

  • 1:00 PM – 1:20 PM

    Picasso Ballroom

    Opening Remarks

    Introducer

    Miceal Chamberlain

    President of Massachusetts, Bank of America

    Opening Remarks

    Maura Healey

    Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

  • 1:20 PM – 2:00 PM

    Picasso Ballroom

    Healthcare Innovation and Regional Competitiveness

    Panelists

    John Fish

    Chairman & CEO, Suffolk

    Reshma Kewalramani, MD

    CEO & President, Vertex Pharmaceuticals

    Jonathan Kraft

    President, The Kraft Group;

    Board Chair, Massachusetts General Hospital

  • 2:05 PM – 2:30 PM

    Picasso Ballroom

    Fireside

    Fireside Chat

    Moderators

    Tazeen Ahmad

    SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Roger Hajjar, MD

    Director, Gene & Cell Therapy Institute, Mass General Brigham

    Panelist

    Reshma Kewalramani, MD

    CEO & President, Vertex Pharmaceuticals

  • 2:35 PM – 3:10 PM

    Picasso Ballroom

    Delivering Care: New Tools, Evolving Challenges, Bold Aspirations

    Moderator

    Andrew Bressler

    Washington Healthcare Policy Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Panelists

    Rod Hochman, MD

    President & CEO, Providence

    Anne Klibanski, MD

    President & CEO, Mass General Brigham;

    Laurie Carrol Guthart Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

    Kevin Mahoney

    CEO, University of Pennsylvania Health System

  • 3:10 PM – 3:35 PM

    Picasso Ballroom

    Fireside

    Fireside Chat

    Moderators

    Caroline Sokol, MD, PhD

    Assistant Physician, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

    Charlie Yang, PhD

    Large/SMid-Cap Biotech and Major Pharma Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Panelist

    Mark McKenna

    Chairman & CEO, Mirador Therapeutics

3:40 PM – 4:05 PM

Picasso Ballroom

RECORDING OF SPEAKERS’ QUOTES ON WordPress.com
 
STARTS HERE

Fireside

Fireside Chat

Moderators

Jason Gerberry

Specialty Pharma and SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

Allan Goldstein, MD

Chief of Pediatric Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital;

Surgeon-in-Chief, Mass General for Children;

Marshall K. Bartlett Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Panelist

Christophe Weber, President & CEO, Takeda

  • pipeline is very diverse at the R&D center in Boston

Phase III:

  • TAK-279 Psorisis
  • Neurocrine’s Takeda-Partnered Drug Candidate Aces Phase II Depression Study

The Markets for Takeda

  • US market is 40% of revenue, It is a difficult market but still the most important for Phama in the World
  • Japan is 8%
  • Growth by acquisitions and internal development like above, two Phase III drugs

Price control and policies:

  • negotiation
  • price war create tension

Team:

Public company traded in NYSE

  • Management team has 10 nationalities – Global company
  • AI is adopted as a digital companion

Recruiting Patients for Clinical Trial:

  • Very difficult

M&A

  • After acquisition of Shire – not many other opportunities are left

4:05 PM – 4:40 PM

Picasso Ballroom

The Innovation Gap: A Review of the Future of Viral Vector Manufacturing and the Delivery of Genetic Medicines

Moderators

Elizabeth Henske, MD, Director, Center for LAM Research and Clinical Care, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Alec Stranahan, PhD, SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

Panelists

Peter Anastasiou, CEO, Capsida Biotherapeutics

  • Capsid technology for Liver disease, Parkinson’s
  • AV and CNS crossing BBB
  • One capsid for one disease
  • manufacture caspids
  • Challenges:  manufacturable after screening
  • IV delivery – brain disorder, blood flow would bring therapeutics to all brain tissue consistently vs localized
  • Partnership with Eli Lilly and with Crisper technologies with Abbvie

Steve Favaloro, Chairman & CEO, Genezen

  • 200 persons Team manufacture
  • Partnerships: synthetic plasma

Alexandria Forbes, PhD, CEO, MeiraGTx

  • Optimize promoters, control transcription expression by injection or by pill, control translation
  • improving potency of gene therapies capsule technology
  • cost hundred of $ not thousand of $
  • ALL manufacturing in house
  • 9 years of data can help to narrow down the parameters
  • time frame is shortened
  • company established 9 years ago
  • apply DNA expression – invented a technology
  • splicing control mRNA
  • control cell lines
  • give an injection or a pill and control antibodies, glucagon
  • control dosing for efficatious therapeutics
  • Potency
  • Ribozon is a delivery system
  • Partnership with J&J –

Fraser Wright, PhD, Chief Gene Therapy Officer, Kriya Therapeutics

  • manufacturing – changing in capsule design
  • manufacture viruses
  • cost of manufacturing – efficiency matters a lot
  • delivery of the gene in the tissue
  • Partnerships: basic vs applied Quality from research to manufacturing

4:45 PM – 5:20 PM

Picasso Ballroom

A Deep Dive on Genetic Modalities for Rare Disease: Genetic Medicines Are Here

Moderator

Tazeen Ahmad, SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

  • Treat once or repeat therapy?

Patricia Musolino, MD, PhD, MGH

 

Panelists

Faraz Ali, Tenaya Therpeutics

  • genetic therapy for a genetic mutation – NOVEL approach
  • 400 mutation related to cardiomyopathy
  • 2018 – gene therapy was an innovation
  • genetic medicine Cardiology introducing opportunities wiht validation that did not exist
  • find novel targets Partnerships are a must to have
  • Viral therapies vs gene therapy

Lucas Harrington, PhD, Co-Founder & CSO, Mammoth Biosciences

  • How to turm Genome 2012 to therapy?
  • targeting: Taking risk Patient interaction with treatment
  • variation between Rare diseases some are very small some are not small – incentive to investors
  • The field will grow fast

Raju Prasad, PhD, Chief Financial Officer, CRISPR Therapeutics

  • various indications
  • FDA Approval
  • Gene editing technology for rare diseases
  • LPA for RNA therapy
  • incentive to investors
  • Important for investor to understand the siize of the market, CRISPR can be a technology for a large market size
  • Sickle cell disease – market is large and therapy can be made affordable

 

Sandi See Tai, MD, Chief Development Officer, Lexeo Therapeutics

  • cardiomyopathy
  • protective gene
  • Early genetic testing
  • Educating patients

5:20 PM – 6:30 PM

Picasso Terrace and Harborside Lawns 1 & 2

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

8:00 AM – 8:55 AM

Picasso Ballroom

The Transforming World

Introducer

Liz Everett Krisberg, Head of Bank of America Institute

  • Record attendance this year
  • Introduction to Haim

Panelist

Haim Israel

Head of Global Thematic Investing Research, BofA Global Research

  • Concept of the Future and for the Future: Short-term and long-term
  • Humanity achievements in Ten Year: Data, Processing power and BRAIN – Long-term becomes Short-term – Last 10 years: 2012, 2014 solar system, 2015 medicine, 2019 blackhole, 2023 core of sun – star was created hotter than core sun
  • 2022, 2024 – galaxy picture of the universe
  • Volume of data created every month in terrabyts every 18 month data is duplicating itself.
  • Olny 1% is used – imagine 2% or 3%
  • Processing power since Apollo 11 [one trillion] – getting cheaper – cost for calculation went down 16,000 fold since 1995
  • AMMOUNT of DATA goes up and Cost of COMPUTATION goes down – price per giga byte
  • Projections for the next 100 years
  • Negative for people and Negative for Companies who are concerned with quarterly financial data
  • Companies: Walmart, Alphabet, Home Depot – DATA larger that COuntries
  • Living in defining moment: started by iPhone revolution and 2023 by AI revolution – 6x outpaced Moore’s Law by GPT by 3000x
  • 18 months into AI revolution – GPT in use
  • The next 10 years:
  1. Aging population
  2. 2024 – birth rate low in US, Japan, CHina, S. Korea – Pension system will decline in size
  3. 2.2 millions new material were created by DeepMind at Alphabet by simulation of AI on molecule
  4. Microsoft in 80 hours identified 18 materials winners for Batteries using AI from 32 million material candidates
  5. AI- weather calculations in minutes 1,000x faster, cheaper and more accurate
  6. 2025 – GPT-6 AI surpass Human Brain
  7. China is a big player in AI
  8. Cyber CRIME is the 3rd largest economy in the World. Hackers are using ChatGPT to create fake pictures leading to ZERO privacy
  • PRIVACY: Deepfakes up 62x, social media
  • 2024 – Global Grid – needs much more energy because AI consumes so much energy
  • Metals shortages: Nickel, Copper,
  • Scarcity of water for 2/3 of the planet
  • data centers consume water more than Japan
  • 2025 – Genomics Data sequencing bigger that X.com or Youtube
  • 2027 – Peak oil demand: needed to be scalable, cheaper 25%
  • 2028 – 5G networks reaches full capacity, 6G will be needed
  • 2029 – 25x more satellites in Orbit than today
  • 2029 – Personalized AI medicines and treatments will manipulate death and revive LONGEVITY – AI will generate drugs and all treatments
  • 2030Generative AI:  re-skill 1 Billion people
  • 2035 – Fusion energy, known technology since the atomic bomb, how to keep it stable in plasma state of material – not yet achieved, it is clean, cheap: to Power the World – equivalent of 11 barrels of oil
  • Large cities: Cable diameter 17cm wide to power a large city
  • AI will change scarcity into abundance
  • 2037 – Artifitial SUPER Intelligence – AI to outsmart Life
  • Quantum computer – Consortium of NASA and other governmental agencies and Google on quantum computer design
  • 2024 the most interesting year in human history

 

Concurrent Events

  • 9:00 AM – 9:45 AM

    Current and Future States of Immunology

    Moderators

    Caroline Sokol, MD, PhD, Assistant Physician, Massachusetts General Hospital;, Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

    Alec Stranahan, PhD, SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Panelists

    Dong Feng Chen, MD, PhD, Associate Scientist, Massachusetts Eye and Ear;, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

    Steven Grinspoon, MD, Chief, Metabolism Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

    Alexandra-Chloé Villani, PhD, Investigator, Massachusetts General Hospital; Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

  • 9:00 AM – 9:45 AM

    Therapeutic Psychedelics – Opportunities and Impact

    Moderators

    Maurizio Fava, MD

    Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Slater Family Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

    Jason Gerberry

    Specialty Pharma and SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Kerry Ressler, MD, PhD

    Chief Scientific Officer, McLean Hospital;

    Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

    Panelists

    Cristina Cusin, MD

    Director, MGH Ketamine Clinic and Psychiatrist, Depression Clinical and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Associate Professor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

    Daniel Karlin, MD

    Chief Medical Officer, MindMed

    John Krystal, MD

    Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine

    Jennifer Warner-Schmidt, PhD

    Vice President, Scientific Affairs, Transcend Therapeutics

  • 9:00 AM – 9:45 AM

    Innovations Advancing Community Health Equity

    Moderators

    Allen Lutz

    Health Care Services Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Elsie Taveras, MD

    Chief Community Health & Health Equity Officer, Mass General Brigham;

    Conrad Taff Endowed Chair and Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

    Panelists

    Rebecca Mishuris, MD

    Chief Medical Information Officer, Mass General Brigham;

    Member of the Faculty, Harvard Medical School

    Claire-Cecile Pierre, MD

    Vice President, Community Health Programs, Mass General Brigham;

    Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School

    Jorge Rodriguez, MD

    Clinician-investigator, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

    Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

    Prabhjot Singh, MD, PhD

    Senior Advisor, Strategic Initiatives Peterson Health Technology Institute

  • 9:00 AM – 9:45 AM

    Earliest Detection

    Moderators

    James Brink, MD

    Enterprise Chief, Radiology, Mass General Brigham;

    Juan M. Taveras Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School

    David Louis, MD

    Enterprise Chief, Pathology, Mass General Brigham

    Benjamin Castleman Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School

    Jason Zemansky, PhD

    SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Panelists

    Jasmeer Chhatwal, MD, PhD

    Associate Neurologist, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Associate Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School

    Pradeep Natarajan, MD

    Director of Preventive Cardiology, Paul & Phyllis Fireman Endowed Chair in Vascular Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

    Yakeel Quiroz, PhD

    Director, Familial Dementia Neuroimaging Lab and Director, Multicultural Alzheimer’s Prevention Program, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Paul B. and Sandra M. Edgerley MGH Research Scholar;

    Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

    Heidi Rehm, PhD

    Chief Genomics Officer, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School

  • 9:00 AM – 9:45 AM

    Women’s Health Technology Revolution

    Moderators

    Tazeen Ahmad

    SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Hadine Joffe, MD

    Executive Director of the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology;

    Interim Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

    Paula A. Johnson Professor of Psychiatry in the Field of Women’s Health, Harvard Medical School

    Panelists

    Keith Isaacson, MD

    Director of Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery and Infertility, Newton Wellesley Hospital;

    Associate Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Harvard Medical School

    Nawal Nour, MD

    Chair, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

    Associate Professor, Kate Macy Ladd Professorship, Harvard Medical School

    Kaveeta Vasisht, MD, PharmD

    Associate Commissioner, Women’s Health, U.S. Food and Drug Administration

    Alice Zheng, MD

    Principal, RH Capital

9:50 AM – 10:15 AM

Picasso Ballroom

Fireside

Fireside Chat

Moderator

David Brown, MD, President, Academic Medical Centers, Mass General Brigham; Mass General Trustees Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School

  • Hoe do you balance Private medicine with Public not for profit HealthCare
  • Healthcare delivery system can achieve that much in Human health
  • Resources for Equity: housing and services: Capacity and COst
  • Evolution of care close to home catalyst of the Pandemic – How government think about the right patient for the right care level
  • MGB 40-60 In-patients at Home – Largest Program in the State  – product needs to scale across all population though some do not have food security at home

Panelist

Kate Walsh, Secretary of Health and Human Services, State of Massachusetts

  • Stuart Bankrupcy – pstioents and providers involvement – structure challenges
  • Race and ethnicity – disparities, access and equity
  • Identify the challenge for Race and ethnicity
  • Focus to identify resources
  • Medicare & Medicaid – Human needs equity involve housing, food and home care – Public and Private sector cooperation
  • Pay for Performance
  • MA vs NYC – resources for welcoming new populations to the State of MA
  • Help finding Housing vs Shelter people
  • MA is the only State in the Union that is a Shelter State
  • People in our COuntry LEGALLY are in and out of shelters, new arrivals of skilled labor – temporary assistance to get jobs that we can’t find people to fill: CNA as example
  • MA has a community of shelters and medical center in the communities
  • Services for people that are at risk due to past life in home countries
  • Support for kids that do not speak English
  • Care and location: Keep care at home or SNF at home or in the community
  • Low income person at Home Hospital vs at MGB ?
  • Autist kids becoming Adult – how to care for ?

 

10:15 AM – 10:40 AM

Picasso Ballroom

Fireside

Fireside Chat

Moderators

Alec Stranahan, PhD, SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

Teresa Gomez-Isla, MD, PhD, MGH, Neurology, Memory division

  • Altzheimer’s biomarkers
  • Clinical trials lessons on drug benefits

Panelist

David Hyman, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Eli Lilly and Company

  • Cardio-metabolic – medicines redefining disease by medicines benefit to patients
  • Investment in manufacturing medicines for Obesity, demand continue to expand
  • Oral small molecule and scaling focus on Sleep apnea, half of the population have metabolic disease and heart failure
  • Extension Program with sustained weigh loss in pre-diabetes progressing into maintained weigh loss
  • Invest in R&D in the cardio-metabolic
  • Listed to community feedback on experience how the drugs in AD affected patients in the Community – learning about challenges in delivery innovation in AD – irreversible neurodegenerative diseases – prevent not to loose the patients entirely – brain function
  • Targeted therapies, genetic therapies
  • Past life Oncologist – delivered innovations into Cancer patients – genetic medicines
  • AD medicines are not accessible even to people of means, Drug delivery using PET spinal injections
  • Ten years horizons at Eli Lilly is common
  • Obligation to provide scientific evidence from clinical trials
  • Inventory of patients qualification to participate in Clinical trials
  • Oncology: Interactions in biologics, cell therapies, conjucate compounds
  • Renewal of Targeting antigens
  • In Oncology: Proportions of patients get long term disease control by molecules developed in Academic Centers.
  • Eli Lilly acquired a BioPharma with manufacturing capabilities
  • Innovations are core vs discount cash-flow, strategy is to look at the science due to capacity to develop innovations

10:40 AM – 11:20 AM

Picasso Ballroom

Disruptors

The Disruptors: Metabolic Power…Need It…Want it

Moderator

Alec Stranahan, PhD, SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

Caroline Apovian, MD, MGH, HMS

  • Last ten years, from metabolic lessons of Bariatric patients
  • Treat obesity before surgery
  • product composition
  • multidisciplinary approach to obesity needs to be like in Oncology – multiple dsciplines
  • Bariatric and weigh regain like stent stenosis after surgery
  • Obesity dysfunction inflammation Gut-Brain transfer of hormones from the gut do not reach the brain to carb hunger socieaty is not signaled in the Brain and eating continued to mitigate hunger
  • Insurance must cover
  • Obesity Medicine – training 25 new practitioners to treat Obesity – Standards of Care, life style change
  • Primary care providers do not have resources to treat Life style component of
  • To reduce mortality by 20% by Bariatric surgery – No reduce of mortality by stenting – THAT I DISAGREE with

 

Panelists

David Hyman, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Eli Lilly and Company

  • non-peptide agonist, bariatric level for obesity
  • peptide injecting device
  • hormones and peptids activan inhibitor
  • hundred of million of people – scaling up
  • Adolescence with obesity will develop CVD, NASH
  • Epidemic of obesity the medicines are combating the epidemic
  • Vials, differential pricing, orals vs injectables
  • Productivity of work force, coverage by employers health insurance vs Government to handle coverage
  • 10 additional drug

Xiayang Qiu, PhD, CEO, Regor Therapeutics

  • six years ago, great opportunity peptide and biologics for lifetime disease of obesity
  • cardiovascular favorably = affected by reduction in weigh
  • Medicines that works start early at age 35

Harith Rajagopalan, MD, PhD, CEO & Co-Founder, Fractyl Health

  • Diet & Life Style
  • Eli Lilly and Novo Nordik – have great drugs
  • Patients stop using them before they see the benefit
  • durable long term of mentainance long-tern to stay on the drug
  • Past life coronary cardiologist: PCI vs surgery choice of care angioplasty vs open heart surgery
  • Bariatric surgery vs great medicines
  • may be angioplasty for Bariatric patients
  • Obesity is different than CVD
  • BC-BS coverage of obesity drugs because weight is gained back vs Statins – continual use control cholestrol
  • maintenance drugs in the field of Obesity are needed
  • cost of drugs will come down
  • more evidence on obesity drugs will affect Formulary

 

11:20 AM – 12:00 PM

Picasso Ballroom

The Innovation Gap: The Broader Impact of Metabolic Drugs on Related Diseases

Moderator

Jason Zemansky, PhD, SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

Patrick Ellinor, MD, PhD, MGH, HMS

Panelists

Craig Basson, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer, Bitterroot Bio

  • 17,000 patients obese no DM
  • prior CVD followed 3 yrs of treatment 6% mortality during the Trial
  • Death from CVD endpoint
  • weight at joining the trial, loss during the trial, benefir from the drug’
  • improve CVD not weigh loss
  • mechanism of Inflammation – drug, reduced atherosclerosis and reduced plaque and cytokins and inflammation improve CVD status
  • combination of life style and drugs GI axis systemic
  • cardiac artery disease: cholesterol, inhibit inflammatory signals plaque build on top of itself – approaches to remove debris macrophages in the plaque for artherosclerosis mechanism as CVD risk

Joshua Cohen, Co-CEO, Amylyx Pharmaceuticals

  • Bariatric surgery lower obesity
  • genetics, eating habits,
  • GLP-1 agonist developed

Punit Dhillon, CEO, Skye Bioscience

  • Phase II study combination therapy CVD and Obesity
  • optimize body composition – more productive on the body periphery
  • subtypes metabolic gains
  • Pharmacotherapy for obesity: mechanisms complementary life style change is a must have for long-term benefits
  • weight loss as a start before obesity treatment
  • co-morbidities of obesity

Justin Klee, Co-CEO, Amylyx Pharmaceuticals

  • Parkinson’s CNS peripheral Brain access therapies
  • revolution in metabolic disease treatment options, more studies for pathways to target the right patients for the right treatment
  • GLP-1 is energy regulator, Hypoglycemia is very dangerous

Rohan Palekar, CEO, 89bio

  • applications to obesity – data support
  • bariatric surgery intervention is not enough, NASH will not be impacted only by the surgery
  • NASH is a disease taking 25 years to develop
  • risk of fibrosis to set in Cirrhosis which is not curable

 

Concurrent Events

  • 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM

    ARPA-H: Opening New Frontiers in Health Innovations

    Panel of 5

    Glioblastoma Treatment Reinvented

    Moderators

    E. Antonio Chiocca, MD, PhD

    Chair, Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

    Harvey W. Cushing Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School

    Charlie Yang, PhD

    Large/SMid-Cap Biotech and Major Pharma Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Panelists

    Natalie Artzi, PhD

    Associate Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School

    Bryan Choi, MD, PhD

    Associate Director, Center for Brain Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School

    Alexandra Golby, MD

    Neurosurgeon;

    Director of Image-guided Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

    Professor of Neurosurgery, Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School

  • 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM

    Healthcare Corporate Venture

    Moderator

    Roger Kitterman

    Senior Vice President, Ventures and Business Development & Licensing, Mass General Brigham

    Managing Partner, Mass General Brigham Ventures

    Panelists

    Rahul Ballal, PhD

    CEO, Mediar Therapeutics

    Tim Luker, PhD

    VP, Ventures & West Coast Head, Eli Lilly

    James Mawson

    CEO, Global Corporate Venturing

  • 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM

    Inflammation Pathways

    Moderators

    Tazeen Ahmad

    SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Katherine Liao, MD

    Associate Physician, Department of Rheumatology, Inflammation, and Immunity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

    Associate Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School

    Panelists

    Jessica Allegretti, MD

    Director, Crohn’s and Colitis Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital;

    Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

    Andrew Luster, MD, PhD

    Chief, Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology;

    Director, Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Persis, Cyrus and Marlow B. Harrison Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

    Thorsten Mempel, MD, PhD

    Associate Director, Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital;

    Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

  • 12:15 PM – 1:00 PM

    Hospital at Home

    Moderators

    Joanna Gajuk

    Health Care Facilities and Managed Care Analyst, BofA Global Research

    Heather O’Sullivan, MS, RN, AGNP

    President, Mass General Brigham Healthcare at Home

    Panelists

    O’Neil Britton, MD

    Chief Integration Officer & Executive Vice President, Mass General Brigham

    Jatin Dave, MD

    Chief Medical Officer, MassHealth;

    Director of Clinical Affairs, UMass Chan Medical School

    Chemu Lang’at

    Chief Operating Officer, Best Buy Health

1:05 PM – 1:45 PM

Picasso Ballroom

Pioneering Digital Transformation

Moderator

Liz Kwo, MD, Chief Commercial Officer, Everly Health

  • Infrastructure
  • AI used for

Panelists

Anna Åsberg, Vice President, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals

  • Massive data bases organize
  •  AI to augment intelligence inside the data

Tyler Bryson, Corporate Vice President, US Health & Public Sector Industries, Microsoft Corporation

  • Do we have platforms to serve new problem
  • Regulatory changes require visiting use cases
  • Pharma has the research data, providers have EMR – Microsoft builds new models using that data
  • Tumor imaging data was processed and new pattern recognition done on data of these tumors. New patterns are now a subject for research, just identified inside the data
  • Trust in Healthcare
  • NYC and Microsoft developed a System for small businesses to access city resources
  • Works with Academic institutions: Programs at Harvard and Princeton to train students by Microsoft employees on MIcrosoft AI technologies that as they graduate there will be trained new AI-trained employees
  • collaborations

Aditya Bhasin, BofA

  • AI in Banking: Bias, security
  • AI virtual system analytics to provide insight for scaling

Jane Moran, MGH

  • Network, Data structure needs updates
  • technology to help clinicians
  • care team to work with Generative AI to assist in e-mail reading and problem solving
  • Healthcare equity – avoid Bias
  • AI is not an answer to every problem
  • innovate at scale: using Epic and Microsoft
  • Clinical data structure for LLM, AI to renovate administrative processes inside MGH
  • Data structure for transperancy
  • Digital Rounds like Medical ROunds audit problems
  • equity in data

1:45 PM – 2:25 PM

Picasso Ballroom

Capital Formation: Putting Money to Work – State of Affairs in Capital Markets

Moderators

John Bishai, PhD, BofA

  • valuations went down

Brendan Singleton, Healthcare Equity Capital Markets, BofA Securities

  • what impact Capital flow

Emma Somers-Roy, Chief Investment Officer, Mass General Brigham

Panelists

Chris Garabedian, Chairman & CEO, Xontogeny; Venture Portfolio Manager, Perceptive Advisors

  • Valuations done with comparables for IPO
  • Not quick to invest in companies, responsible behavior
  • Private rounds, Biotech and Pharma strategic partners
  • M&A stable requires are exciting valuation
  • foundations, institutional investors – level of interest is related to valuations number of years to exit
  • Peak sale, Public markets different than Private markets
  • Obesity is a crowd space, diferentiation is important
  • Exit tow ways: year for IPO natural acquirer – Who is he??
  • Cancer was a dominant now CNS, Cardio-metabolic, ophthalmology
  • size of market – Cancer was attractive, less in 2024
  • Early venture investor: 50-100MM valuation to 2Bil
  • CMS has discounting since profits are been realize at present time
  • Patents`
  • Presidential election
  • investors scarce pushed fewer mega rounds 100MM financing requires early clinical data
  • Hedge fund very conservative with valuations
  • Downsize in Biotech is over

Arjun Goyal, MD, Vida Ventures

  • Investment in private markets
  • 2019-2021 – IPOs on narratives and proof of concept, only only, no financials
  • M&A or Partnering – financial risk clinical data point
  • validation of team success
  • size of market is very important
  • Innovation matters always in Pharma, prospects for Biotech very bright
  • what is HOT in a moment
  • combination therapies
  • Life cycle: compound right gene, financing history, fundamentals
  • calibration of market valuations

 

2:25 PM – 2:50 PM

Picasso Ballroom

Fireside

Lessons Learned Shaping New Horizons: Visionary Change Agent Perspectives

Moderator

Yvonne Hao, Secretary of Economic Development, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

  • accelerate AI adoption by nurses, How do you do that??
  • Public private partnerships
  • If you have a blank slate – do it differently

Great impact of Cleveland Clinic

Panelists

Delos “Toby” Cosgrove, MD, Executive Advisor; former CEO & President, Cleveland Clinic

  • Housing, education, research beyond healthcare
  • Reduce cost in healthcare, call centers by AI: equipment to measure BP every 4 hours
  • Technology is approved 13 years to become standard of care
  • COST in healthcare requires SALVATION
  • mistakes by leadership
  • Regulators have their share in current situation of Healthcare
  •  Leadership in Health care must change

Marc Harrison, MD, Co-founder & CEO, Health Assurance Transformation Corp. (HATCo)

  • collaborate with competitors
  • AI is a tool not a solution
  • Streamline processes to reduce costs
  • Government should not solve the Healthcare problem
  • Residents are victims of leaders mistakes
  • Only healthcare industry sees the medical records of all the population
  • gene therapy, innovations to change healthcare and get financial solvency

2:50 PM – 3:15 PM

Picasso Ballroom

Fireside

Fireside Chat

Moderators

Andrew Bressler, Washington Healthcare Policy Analyst, BofA Global Research

  • What is coming up in the next two years
  • Are you growing and Hiring?

Yvonne Hao, Secretary of Economic Development, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

  • AI – what is the potential for Healthcare
  • MA to work with ARPA-H

Panelist

Renee Wegrzyn, PhD, Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health – A Federal Governmental Agency

  • ARPA-H Model was introduce under the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health
  • Hired 21 Program Managers to manage Health initiatives in research
  • Health is not a partizan affair
  • Bring young innovators, mantored by experiences healthcare professionals
  • cellular therapeutics is an example selected to advanced the field
  • Data driven – looking at +100 project approved by government agency
  • Governtment, Academia, Private sector – SOLICITATIONS for solving a research problem
  • Technical merit in judging applications
  • Value-baced pricing – data to influence policy FDA, NIH collaboration
  • FDA to finance projects spending
  • Pediatrics
  • President announced a program for ARPA-H to work on
  • Investors are welcome to review proof of concepts of ARPA-H
  • Return on Investment for all Americans’ Tax payers money
  • Yes, growing and hiring. $1.5 milion budget

 

 

3:15 PM – 3:20 PM

First Look

3:20 PM – 3:35 PM

Selector of Winner: Doug Marshall & Paul Anderson, MD, PhD

 

3:35 PM – 4:15 PM

Picasso Ballroom

Disruptors

The Disruptors: The Biologic Revolution in Radiotherapies

Moderator

John Bishai, PhD, Global Healthcare Investment Banking, BofA Securities

Umar Mahmood, MD, PhD, MGH, HMS

Panelists

Amos Hedt, Chief Business Strategy Officer, Perspective Therapeutics

  • imaging used to deliver the therapeutics before the drug touch the patient to calculate toxicity
  • PL-1 combined with radiotherapy synergistics results
  • immunogenic combination therapy, in presence of these agents, immune response reaction in the immune cells

Matthew Roden, PhD, President & CEO, Aktis Oncology

  • Conjugates – delivery direct to tumors
  • Opportunity two targets: (1) SSTA2 marker (2) xx
  • WHen agent inside the tumor, shrinkage and no emergence of cell nascent 
  •  optimization design
  • Treatment break for patients and families

Philip Kantoff, MD, Co-Founder & CEO, Convergent Therapeutics

  • Radio-pharmeceutics : 10 days half-life carrier not a target for small molecules Data on 120 patient, namo robust response synergy of antibody and molecule
  • image alphas
  • durable responses

Matt Vincent, PhD, AdvanCell Isotopes

  • ROS species generated in the tumor
  • peptides, protein binders
  • paradigm shift in delivery of oncology therapeutics directly to tumors

Lena Janes, PhD, Abdera Therapeutics

  • isotope will deliver the payload without damaging the DNA and healthy tissue
  • target different types of tumors, different half-life
  • Radiation therapy using isotopes id one of two modalities: tumor in and tumor out approach
  • screen for patient for the translational therapy
  • Next generation of products will come, now it is the beginning of these agents

4:20 PM – 4:45 PM

Picasso Ballroom

Fireside

Fireside Chat

Moderator

Michael Ryskin, Life Science Tools & Diagnostics Analyst, BofA Global Research

  • Precision Medicine was it a paradigm shift??
  • Acquisition of manufacturing capabilities
  • research, manufacturinf line blurred
  • WHat excites you the most

Panelist

Marc Casper, Chairman, President & CEO, Thermo Fisher Scientific

  • Enabling Life sceinces, Pharmaceutical industries $1.5Billion internal investment annually
  • AI increasing knowledge
  • How is Precision Medicine applied? Sequencing in Cancer accelerated the Genomics information in use for 24 hours response of the sequence – adopted around the World.
  • at MGH lung cancers are treated with genomic sequencing
  • identification of the patients suitability for a targeted treatment
  • treatment during pregnacy at home vs hospitalization
  • History of company: Tools first: Mass spectrometry, one year for one sequence, protein identification and carrying to Mass spectrometry
  • Interactions need understanding acquiring electro spectrometry allowing analytical chemistry on proteins
  • Broad range of products: Clinical research to meet regulatory requirements entry into Reagents products.
  • Clinical Trials made effective by Thermo Scientific Products
  • Capabilities in registries, patient safety in psoriasis
  • Large role in experimental medicine drives efficiency in LABS
  • SIze of customers: small Biotech and large Pharma
  • Manufacture medicines: work with partnersbuilt by acquisitions small molecules,
  • 100 engagements research, supply chain making medicines available at sites
  • Role for AI at Thermo Scientific:
  1. Productivity – Cost effective for processes in use by 120,000 employees
  2. Super customer interaction perfected by interogations with internal manuals to provide answers quickly
  3. Improvement of products
  • Excitement Points: Responsiveness to COVID pandemic
  • New medicine development

4:50 PM – 5:30 PM

Picasso Ballroom

The Reemergence of ADCs, Precision Medicine, T-cell engagers, and Bispecifics: Oncology at Its Finest

 

Moderators

John Bishai, PhD, BofA

  • Approach to AI
  • Strategy regarding clinical trial design, vs molecule design

Justin Gainor, MD, MGH, HMS

  • How strategies are developed and then modified?
  • immune therapies work better open new paradeigm

Panelists

Moitreyee Chatterjee-Kishore, PhD, Head of Development, Immuno-Oncology and Cancer Cell Therapy, Astellas Pharma Inc.

  • cancer – first line of treatment vs 2nd and 3rd
  • Precision medicine more precise
  • mix and match immunotherapy and other modalities
  • small molecule early on
  • molecule formulation is science and art
  • Stratify the patient population early on
  • Help needed to design better trials
  • Research is key for molecule design

Niall Martin, PhD, CEO, Artios Pharma

  • peptide chemistry
  • molecule design had options several are applied
  • biomarker driven event in development cycle
  • strategy of biomarkers – lack structure
  • effect of combination therapy on survival?

Chris Varma, PhD, Co-founder, Chairman & CEO, Frontier Medicines

 

5:30 PM – 8:30 PM

South Lawn Tent

Attendee Reception and Dinner

Moderator

Anne Oxrider

Senior Vice President, Benefits Executive, Bank of America

Panelist

Deepak Chopra, MD

Founder, The Chopra Foundation

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

8:30 AM – 8:55 AM

Picasso Ballroom

Fireside

Fireside Chat

Moderators

David Ting, MD, Associate Clinical Director for Innovation, Mass General Cancer Center; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

  • Innovation is the foundation of the future
  • Creative thinking vs one agent and one target
  • Openness is much appreciated

Jason Zemansky, PhD, SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

  • On WSJ article on M&A in Biotech attributing decline in M&A of Biotech companies due to LACK of Innovations
  • Q from audience: organizational structure and innovation
  • Vision on leveraging Partnerships

Panelist

Tadaaki Taniguchi, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer, Astellas Pharma

  • Pharma and Biotech heavy betting on new medicines in Oncology
  • Astellas Pharma is different than other Pharma companies
  • We focus on Oncology and in combination therapies as a priority
  • Investment pay attention to Leadership priorities
  • One product vs BEST combination therapy for best treatment and outcomes
  • Innovations come from anywhere
  • ADCs: Target, payload emerged recently by a partnership
  • Collaborations: several pathways, several modalities, several combinations therapies
  • Partnership requires greater flexibility
  • Created Small flexible Labs to enable to innovate with Partners, “we can’t innovate alone”

9:00 AM – 9:40 AM

Picasso Ballroom

Disruptors

The Disruptors: The Role of Pathway Inhibition in Inflammation and Inflammatory Diseases

Moderators

Tazeen Ahmad, SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

  • Are you using AI
  • Neuroinflammation

Cynthia Lemere, PhD, BWH, HMS

  • What systems are primarily impacted by the Immunes system
  • Drug delivery for inflammation huge area
  • Getting antibodies to the Brain
  • Precision medicine, genetics,specific person with specific immune disease

Panelists

Jo Viney, PhD, Cofounder, President & CEO, Seismic Therapeutic

  • Pandemics highlighted the impact of the immune system
  • Targeting cytokines in specific locations – hew approach
  • Modalities on hand: protein degradation mediation by bringing two cells together
  • AI is used for Patient stratification
  • AI to be used in Pathways involved in disease process to identify Biologics, PROTAC,
  • AI and ML for training models from interaction between proteins
  • ChatGPT to predict interactions among proteins
  • Immune disease and remission bust the immune system to improve quality of life of patient undergoing interventions
  • T-cell engaggers – in cases of refractory – great approach for boosting the immune system: removal of antibidies, recycling antibodies,
  • Two ends: Cell depletion vs Early detection
  • Therapy is every 6 months, cell depletion takes 3 months to come back.
  • Target immune system in the periphery,
  • Immune system in neurodegenerative diseases: Parkinson’s local modulation to penetrate neurological system
  • Markers to cross the BBB or not cross in neurological diseases
  • Immune disease is POLYGENIC multiple o=etiologies, mutation, genetics, which cell and which pathway to target a therapeutics: Biologics
  • Patient stratification is key for Precision Medicine at the cell level
  • T-cell, B-cell, Cytokines and antibodies mediated disease
  • ADGs degradation

9:45 AM – 10:10 AM

Picasso Ballroom

H. Jeffrey Wilkins, MD, Abcuro
  • Inflammation play a role in activating the immune system
  • zin the days of Medical School: inhibition of cytokines
  • Today: specificity to target cells for depletion
  • Specific biomarkers for response to therapies
  • cell types by mutations and physiology and causality in the inflammation area: we know why they have inflammation we need to learn interventions for inflammation
  • Asthma in the 40s as an inflammatory disease
  • assess treatment of inflammation
  • Neuro-inflammation – not well understood
  • What is the cause that drive the disease: understanding encephalitis?
NiranJana Nagarajan, PhD, MGB Ventures
  • Biology is the driver not AI
  • depletion of cells in a certain stage
  • Translation from disease to other diseases in the case of cell therapy potential – active area companies are trying solutions
  • Inflammation is a huge challenge to treat

 

Fireside

Fireside Chat

Moderators

Daniel Kuritzkes, MD, Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Harriet Ryan Albee Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

  • Pathways in vaccine design
  • How to educate population on Vaccines
  • other approaches than vaccines

Alec Stranahan, PhD, SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

  • Vaccine approval
  • Next generation vaccines

Panelist

Stéphane Bancel, CEO, Moderna

  • Vaccine design: long term vaccines weakens in aged population
  • data on role of AVV in Multiple Sclerosis
  • working on in the US vs France, Netherland in Europe different approaches
  • Vaccine for HIV
  • Vaccine was approved last year for children, pharmacies shortage
  • Season of FLu three times more vaccines in use
  • Employees run vaccine clinics on site
  • Vaccines not related to COVID
  • Misinformation from COVID vaccine
  • 5% of COVID hospitalized were on the booster
  • Combination vaccines for high risk populations
  • Healthcare providers need to be involved in Education, many do not have an interest in the education on vaccines
  • Local stories from Vaccine manufectures and developer to be used in education in the communities
  • Individual DNA cancer celll signature of the cancer  – data over time for development of vaccine to cancer many more tumor types are needed
  • Checkpoints in early disease
  • biopsy are too expensive
  • Side effect studies going on
  • mono-therapy vs immunotherapy costs involved
  • Naive virus to get into the Liver two diseases – cassets for sose management
  • Recombinant antibodies technology from the 70s
  • PD-1
  • COVID – was nto in the plan for development – design in silicon in two weeks – no change after this design
  • 10:10 AM – 10:20 AM

10:20 AM – 11:00 AM

Picasso Ballroom

The Innovation Gap: Understanding the Role of Cell Therapies in Autoimmune Disease

Moderator

Charlie Yang, PhD

Large/SMid-Cap Biotech and Major Pharma Analyst, BofA Global Research

  • TCM
  • CAR-T
  • advantages of each cell type

Angele Shen, MGB Innovations

  • CAR-T
  • What would be a quick breakthrough?

Panelists

Jeff Bluestone, PhD, CEO & President, Sonoma Biotherapeutics

  • Cell therapy for cell depletion elimination of B-cells like its role in Multiple Sclerosis
  • Working with regulatory T-cells
  • Population of cells to study: T-cells master regulator in multiple ways – produce metabolic factors, infection tone in activation of other cells
  • Biology of cell: RNA, DNA
  • TCR – target antigens in tissues they are in in immune suppression
  • FInding the right peptide bindes to a certain MAC
  • CAR-T – recornize the cells in the local milieu like in patients with RA as an autoimmune disease
  • Clinical models ascertain cell types involvement leading to clinical trial insights then to therapies on a decision tree
  • recent data on CAR-T immune response in allogeneic for potential use in neurodegenerative diseases
  • patients and companies over react on immune therapy: Patients and Science vs hype
  • next generation: POC,
  • Gene therapy specificities vs Cell therapies – each approach will develop a different drug
  • FDA and NIH has in 11/2023 a meeting on Regulation of Cell therapy on stability and their approach to immune disease where there are already several drugs
  • approvals challenges companies
  • Price, too expensive a treatment is cell therapy

Chad Cowan, PhD, Executive Advisor, Century Therapeutics

  • use Natural Killer cells to elicit long-term immune response, T-cells,
  • active Beta cells]Regulatory monitoring use
  • DM – regulatory cells made from Stem cells
  • mission durable response
  • Clinical issues – not easy way for treatment wiht a cell line and bioreactors and modalities less similar to autologoous celles
  • CAR-T in oncology lessons now are transferred to Immune disease
  • Cell therapy requires technologies to mature multiple modalities and multiple drugs not one cell therapy for all immune diseases
  • Stability of the therapy vs rejection by immune system
  • FDA making cells is not as making drugs – higher level of scrutiny for cell therapy
  • SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY on B-cells for future breakthrough

Samantha Singer, President & CEO, Abata Therapeutics

  • Immune response involve many cell types in many diseases
  • Oncology the use of T-cells as tissue residents staying in tissue long time
  • Specific biology of the disease and regulatory cells receptors optimizing TCR presentation in pathology of tissue residents phyno types
  • activate in nervous system or in pancreas – intersection of cell biology with disease biology
  • Market feasibility – scaling, biology, pathology for reimbursement
  • antibody therapy may be appropriate than cell therapy is only a novel option
  • Cell manufacturing requires optimization of process, companies commercializing across all cell types
  • comprehensive approach for systemic immune suppression
  • : healthy tissue vs diseased tissue with cell theray implanted cells as residents in tissue
  • clinical data on product performance and on the biology reactions

11:00 AM – 11:40 AM

Picasso Ballroom

Unmet Clinical Needs: 100 Harvard KOLs Weigh In

Moderators

Jose Florez, MD, PhD, Physician-in-Chief and Chair, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital; Professor, Harvard Medical School

  • 40 minutes to deal with big needs collected from 100 faculties at Harvard Medical School
  • The ten issues on one slide
  • How could we use compute to distill data

Bruce Levy, MD, Physician-In-Chief and Co-Chair, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Parker B. Francis Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

  • Transformation from the Present to the Future
  • identifying the needs
  • Infectious diseases: Rapid diagnostics need
  • resistance to antibiotics and metabolic reactions endogenous
  • Pandemics globally of diseases erradicated in the past: Pox, polio
  • Improving health in Geriatrics, not population growing but geriatric population growing. Beyong age 60 a citizen will use 1 or 2 physicians each
  • 7,000 diseases, Genetic diseases requires integration and innovations in therapy
  • Innovations in Home devices

Panelists

Rox Anderson, MD, Lancer Endowed Chair of Dermatology;, Director, Wellman Center for Photomedicine, MGH; Professor of Dermatology, HMS

  • Access to data across institutions

Nicole Davis, PhD, Biomedical Communications

  • We asked 104 expert practitioners, content collected was analyzed
  1. detection early
  2. keeping the Human brain healthy
  3. geriatrics Medicine, aging and compound effects on health system with aging and Health equity
  • Bias in Data

Jean-François Formela, MD, Partner, Atlas Venture

  • genetic information used in therapeutics design

Steven Greenberg, MD, Neurologist, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School

  • Human genome completed in 1999, human genetic diseases were discovered learn about the disease at the tissue level with genomics and a system approach
  • Pathogenic drivers, systme integration by therapeutics approaches to pathways multiple cytokines in allergic reactions Pfizer had two biomarkers and therapies for systemic biology of disease
  • Pediatrics has its own challenges
  • Imaging medicine
  • Living longer at a lower cost  – HOW TO ACHIEVE THAT?
  • growth abnormality in children: Body growth and Skull shrink

John Lepore, MD, CEO, ProFound Therapeutics;, CEO-Partner, Flagship Pioneering

  • Pathway, targeting therapy to patients in a System biological approach
  • Database of systme biology has missing components not included in the Human genome project – completion of the Data
  • Definition of End points needs revisiting
  • Identifying specific populations vs getting quickly to market
  • Diseases of aging: Muscles diseases – how to promote improvement in muscle mass

CONCLUSIONS

  1. Gray Tsunami
  2. Brain health
  3. Cancer treatment paradigm shift
  4. Fibrosis in many diseases
  5. infectious disease in changing World
  6. Equity in HC
  7. Clinical Data is VAST
  8. Systemic view of Human disease
  9. New approaches to Psychaitry
  10. Rare disease treatment needs a charter

In addition,

  • new generation of pain treatment
  • skin treatment new drugs
  • Chronic disease: improve treatment and prevention.
  • Obesity medicine – new discipline in a new Era

11:45 AM – 12:30 PM

Picasso Ballroom

Fireside

Fireside Chat

Moderators

Tazeen Ahmad, SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

  • FDA sets criteria  – How is that done?
  • Autoimmune disease therapies – What is in the horizon?

 

Paul Anderson, MD, PhD, Chief Academic Officer, Mass General Brigham;

  • drug development
  • drug pricing in Europe
  • New book
  • RA needs more medicines

UNCONTROLLED SPREAD

In Uncontrolled Spread, a New York Times Best Seller, Dr. Scott Gottlieb identifies the reasons why the US was caught unprepared for the pandemic and how the country can improve its strategic planning to prepare for future viral threats.

Panelist

Scott Gottlieb, MD, Physician; Former Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration (2017-2019)

  • FDA approval 1st gene therapy in his tenure
  • Price of drugs: efficatious vs time to deveop
  • competitors in the marketplace are there for market share
  • New Book: Episodes in the FDA, appproval process at FDA, Gene therapy 1st in class approved – a special moment. Back in 1980s era translated to antibodies, to T-cell pioneering work.
  • Publisher worried it will not sell very well
  • FDA had concerns about manufacturing aspects
  • In 2024 we understand Biologics on novel platforms
  • Worries that Medicare will not reimbursement  and cover the new therapies: Cell therapy
  • Statins approval had a known very large market vs Cell therapy not known which Cancer patients will benefit???
  • Black box involved in Autoimmune, studies bring exciting results
  • In 2018 – needs arise for early approved of drugs in AD, amyloid plaque – change in thinking and is controversial
  • In early 2020, change in settings of clinical trials, placido no more the only way for Randomized trials
  • Approval for AD drug vs othe indication – the process is difference (DMD a case to think about)
  • AI & NLP: Train on data of 10,000 lesions
  • FDA choose not to regulate AI the physician is in the Middle
  • Who is wrong: CHatGPT or the clinician ?
  • Data set on gene may represents NEW biologies that Physicians had not seen before
  • Data validation on medical devices and their approval after regulating them
  • Diagnostics tests: Validation Panels are involved
  • Regulated on input data vs Output data and validate the input data
  • Platforms are needed for regulation of AI involvement in the drug discovery and the drug approval process
  • investment in this platforms will be done by Whom?? It will come
  • Framework for AI at FDA: Regulatory gray data for applications and standards for output – not a novel regulatory concept
  • If AI will be applied widely, I/O accuracy is a must have
  • may be achievable soon?
  • FDA is evolutionary organization in its decision process NOT a REVOLUTIONARY organization. Simulation work started in 2003, 40 people doing that then.
  • Recently, new team in Agency working of Safety with tools and technologies that are common in Science  – Approvals to drug labels and off labels that 20 years ago would not have happened
  • Tolerance for higher prices is to support Private sector that brings the innovating drugs to market

 

SPEAKERS

C-Suite Speakers

Faraz Ali

CEO, Tenaya Therapeutics

Peter Anastasiou

CEO, Capsida Biotherapeutics

Paul Anderson, MD, PhD

Chief Academic Officer, Mass General Brigham; K. Frank Austen Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Rahul Ballal, PhD

CEO, Mediar Therapeutics

Stéphane Bancel

CEO, Moderna

Craig Basson MD, PhD

Chief Medical Officer, Bitterroot Bio

Jeff Bluestone, PhD

CEO & President, Sonoma Biotherapeutics

Albert Bourla, PhD

Chairman & CEO, Pfizer

O’Neil Britton, MD

Chief Integration Officer & Executive Vice President, Mass General Brigham

Marc Casper

Chairman, President & CEO, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Joshua Cohen

Co-CEO, Amylyx Pharmaceuticals

Delos “Toby” Cosgrove, MD

Executive Advisor; former CEO & President, Cleveland Clinic

Jatin Dave, MD

Chief Medical Officer, MassHealth; Director of Clinical Affairs, UMass Chan Medical School

Punit Dhillon

CEO, Skye Bioscience

Steve Favaloro

Chairman & CEO, Genezen

John Fish

Chairman & CEO, Suffolk

Alexandria Forbes, PhD

CEO, MeiraGTx

Niyum Gandhi

CFO & Treasurer, Mass General Brigham

Chris Garabedian

Chairman & CEO, Xontogeny; Venture Portfolio Manager, Perceptive Advisors

Lucas Harrington, PhD

Co-Founder & CSO, Mammoth Biosciences

Marc Harrison, MD

Co-founder & CEO, Health Assurance Transformation Corp. (HATCo)

Amos Hedt

Chief Business Strategy Officer, Perspective Therapeutics

Rod Hochman, MD

President & CEO, Providence

David Hyman, MD

Chief Medical Officer, Eli Lilly and Company

Philip Kantoff, MD

Co-Founder & CEO, Convergent Therapeutics

Daniel Karlin, MD

Chief Medical Officer, MindMed

Reshma Kewalramani, MD

CEO & President, Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Justin Klee

Co-CEO, Amylyx Pharmaceuticals

Anne Klibanski, MD

President & CEO, Mass General Brigham; Laurie Carrol Guthart Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Samarth Kulkarni, PhD

CEO, CRISPR Therapeutics

Liz Kwo, MD

Chief Commercial Officer, Everly Health

Adam Landman, MD

Chief Information Officer & SVP, Digital, Mass General Brigham; Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Chemu Lang’at

Chief Operating Officer, Best Buy Health

Paul LaViolette

Managing Partner & COO, SV Health Investors

John Lepore, MD

CEO, ProFound Therapeutics; CEO-Partner, Flagship Pioneering

Christopher Longhurst, MD

Chief Medical & Digital Officer, UC San Diego Health

Kevin Mahoney

CEO, University of Pennsylvania Health System

Niall Martin, PhD

CEO, Artios Pharma

James Mawson

CEO, Global Corporate Venturing

Mark McKenna

Chairman & CEO, Mirador Therapeutics

Jane Moran

Chief Information and Digital Officer, Mass General Brigham

William Morris, MD

Chief Medical Information Officer, Google Cloud

Rohan Palekar

CEO, 89bio

Raju Prasad, PhD

Chief Financial Officer, CRISPR Therapeutics

Xiayang Qiu, PhD

CEO, Regor Therapeutics

Harith Rajagopalan MD, PhD

CEO & Co-Founder, Fractyl Health

Shiv Rao, MD

CEO & Founder, Abridge

Kerry Ressler, MD, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer, McLean Hospital; Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Matthew Roden, PhD

President & CEO, Aktis Oncology

Sandi See Tai, MD

Chief Development Officer, Lexeo Therapeutics

Samantha Singer

President & CEO, Abata Therapeutics

Joanne Smith-Farrell, PhD

CEO & Director, Be Biopharma

Emma Somers-Roy

Chief Investment Officer, Mass General Brigham

Adam Steensberg, MD

President & CEO, Zealand Pharma

Tadaaki Taniguchi, MD, PhD

Chief Medical Officer, Astellas Pharma

Elsie Taveras, MD

Chief Community Health & Health Equity Officer, Mass General Brigham; Conrad Taff Endowed Chair and Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

Jo Viney, PhD

Cofounder, President & CEO, Seismic Therapeutic

Ron Walls, MD

Chief Operating Officer, Mass General Brigham; Neskey Family Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Christophe Weber

President & CEO, Takeda

Fraser Wright, PhD

Chief Gene Therapy Officer, Kriya Therapeutics

Speakers

Anna Åsberg

Vice President, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals

Tazeen Ahmad

SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

Jessica Allegretti, MD

Director, Crohn’s and Colitis Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Rox Anderson, MD

Lancer Endowed Chair of Dermatology; Director, Wellman Center for Photomedicine, MGH; Professor of Dermatology, HMS

Katherine Andriole, PhD

Director of Academic Research and Education, Mass General Brigham Data Science Office; Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

Caroline Apovian, MD

Co-Director, Center for Weight Management and Wellness, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Vanita Aroda, MD

Director, Diabetes Clinical Research, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

Natalie Artzi, PhD

Associate Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School

John Bishai, PhD

Global Healthcare Investment Banking, BofA Securities

David Blumenthal, MD

Professor of Practice of Public Health and Health Policy, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health; Research Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School of Government; Samuel O. Thier Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School

Giles Boland, MD

President, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization; Philip H. Cook Distinguished Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School

Andrew Bressler

Washington Healthcare Policy Analyst, BofA Global Research

James Brink, MD

Enterprise Chief, Radiology, Mass General Brigham; Juan M. Taveras Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School

David Brown, MD

President, Academic Medical Centers, Mass General Brigham; Mass General Trustees Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Tyler Bryson

Corporate Vice President, US Health & Public Sector Industries, Microsoft Corporation

Jonathan Carlson, MD, PhD

Director of Chemistry, Center for Systems Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital; Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Miceal Chamberlain

President of Massachusetts, Bank of America

Moitreyee Chatterjee-Kishore, PhD

Head of Development, Immuno-Oncology and Cancer Cell Therapy, Astellas Pharma Inc.

Dong Feng Chen, MD, PhD

Associate Scientist, Massachusetts Eye and Ear; Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

Jasmeer Chhatwal, MD, PhD

Associate Neurologist, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School

E. Antonio Chiocca, MD, PhD

Chair, Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Harvey W. Cushing Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School

Bryan Choi, MD, PhD

Associate Director, Center for Brain Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy, Massachusetts General Hospital; Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School

Deepak Chopra, MD

Founder, The Chopra Foundation

Yolonda Colson, MD, PhD

Chief, Division of Thoracic Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital; Hermes C. Grillo Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Chad Cowan, PhD

Executive Advisor, Century Therapeutics

Cristina Cusin, MD

Director, MGH Ketamine Clinic and Psychiatrist, Depression Clinical and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Nicole Davis, PhD

Biomedical Communications

Marcela del Carmen, MD

President, Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts General Physicians Organization (MGPO); Executive Vice President, Mass General Brigham; Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Harvard Medical School

Gerard Doherty, MD

Surgeon-in-Chief, Mass General Brigham Cancer; Surgeon-in-Chief, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Moseley Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Liz Everett Krisberg

Head of Bank of America Institute

Maurizio Fava, MD

Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital; Slater Family Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Keith Flaherty, MD

Director of Clinical Research, Mass General Cancer Center; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Jose Florez, MD, PhD

Physician-in-Chief and Chair, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital; Professor, Harvard Medical School

Jean-François Formela, MD

Partner, Atlas Venture

Fritz François, MD

Executive Vice President and Vice Dean, Chief of Hospital Operations, NYU Langone Health

Joanna Gajuk

Health Care Facilities and Managed Care Analyst, BofA Global Research

Jason Gerberry

Specialty Pharma and SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

Gad Getz, PhD

Director of Bioinformatics, Krantz Center for Cancer Research and Department of Pathology; Paul C. Zamecnik Chair in Cancer Research, Mass General Cancer Center; Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School

Alexandra Golby, MD

Neurosurgeon; Director of Image-guided Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Professor of Neurosurgery, Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School

Allan Goldstein, MD

Chief of Pediatric Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital; Surgeon-in-Chief, Mass General for Children; Marshall K. Bartlett Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Scott Gottlieb, MD

Physician; Former Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration (2017-2019)

David Grayzel, MD

Partner, Atlas Venture

Steven Greenberg, MD

Neurologist, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School

Steven Grinspoon, MD

Chief, Metabolism Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Daphne Haas-Kogan, MD

Chief, Enterprise Radiation Oncology, Mass General Brigham; Professor, Harvard Medical School

Roger Hajjar, MD

Director, Gene & Cell Therapy Institute, Mass General Brigham

John Hanna, MD, PhD

Associate Professor, Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School

Yvonne Hao

Secretary of Economic Development, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Nobuhiko Hata PhD

Director, Surgical Navigation and Robotics Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School

Maura Healey

Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Elizabeth Henske, MD

Director, Center for LAM Research and Clinical Care, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Leigh Hochberg MD, PhD

Director of Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery, Massachusetts General Hospital; Senior Lecturer on Neurology, Harvard Medical School

Daphne Holt, MD, PhD

Director of the Resilience and Prevention Program, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Susan Huang, MD

EVP, Chief Executive, Providence Clinical Network, Providence Southern CA

Keith Isaacson, MD

Director of Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery and Infertility, Newton Wellesley Hospital; Associate Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Harvard Medical School

Ole Isacson, MD-PhD

Founding Director, Neuroregeneration Research Institute, McLean Hospital; Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School

Haim Israel

Head of Global Thematic Investing Research, BofA Global Research

Farouc Jaffer, MD, PhD

Director, Coronary Intervention, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Russell Jenkins, MD, PhD

Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital; Mass General Cancer Center, Center for Melanoma; Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Hadine Joffe, MD

Executive Director of the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology; Interim Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Paula A. Johnson Professor of Psychiatry in the Field of Women’s Health, Harvard Medical School

Benjamin Kann, MD

Assistant Professor, Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School

Tatsuo Kawai, MD, PhD

Director of the Legorreta Center for Clinical Transplantation Tolerance, A.Benedict Cosimi Chair in Transplant Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital; Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Albert Kim, MD

Assistant Physician, Mass General Cancer Center; Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

Roger Kitterman

Senior Vice President, Ventures and Business Development & Licensing, Mass General Brigham Managing Partner, Mass General Brigham Ventures

Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, DMSc

Chief Scientific Advisor, Novo Nordisk

Vesela Kovacheva, MD, PhD

Director of Translational and Clinical Research, Mass General Brigham; Assistant Professor of Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School

Jonathan Kraft

President, The Kraft Group; Board Chair, Massachusetts General Hospital

John Krystal, MD

Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine

Daniel Kuritzkes, MD

Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Harriet Ryan Albee Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Bruce Levy, MD

Physician-In-Chief and Co-Chair, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Parker B. Francis Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Katherine Liao, MD

Associate Physician, Department of Rheumatology, Inflammation, and Immunity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Associate Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School

David Louis, MD

Enterprise Chief, Pathology, Mass General Brigham Benjamin Castleman Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School

Tim Luker, PhD

VP, Ventures & West Coast Head, Eli Lilly

Andrew Luster, MD, PhD

Chief, Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology; Director, Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital; Persis, Cyrus and Marlow B. Harrison Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Allen Lutz

Health Care Services Analyst, BofA Global Research

Calum MacRae MD, PhD

Vice Chair for Scientific Innovation, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Joren Madsen, MD, PhD

Director, MGH Transplant Center; Paul S. Russell/Warner-Lambert Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Faisal Mahmood, PhD

Associate Professor, Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School

Peter Marks, MD, PhD

Director, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, FDA

Marcela Maus, MD, PhD

Director of Cellular Therapy and Paula O’Keeffe Chair in Cancer Research, Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research and Mass General Cancer Center; Associate Director, Gene and Cell Therapy Institute, Mass General Brigham; Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

Thorsten Mempel, MD, PhD

Associate Director, Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Rebecca Mishuris, MD

Chief Medical Information Officer, Mass General Brigham; Member of the Faculty, Harvard Medical School

Pradeep Natarajan, MD

Director of Preventive Cardiology, Paul & Phyllis Fireman Endowed Chair in Vascular Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Nawal Nour, MD

Chair, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Associate Professor, Kate Macy Ladd Professorship, Harvard Medical School

Heather O’Sullivan, MS, RN, AGNP

President, Mass General Brigham Healthcare at Home

Anne Oxrider

Senior Vice President, Benefits Executive, Bank of America

Claire-Cecile Pierre, MD

Vice President, Community Health Programs, Mass General Brigham; Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Richard Pierson III, MD

Scientific Director, Center for Transplantation Sciences, Massachusetts General Hospital; Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Mark Poznansky, MD, PhD

Director, Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center, Massachusetts General Hospital; Steve and Deborah Gorlin MGH Research Scholar; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Yakeel Quiroz, PhD

Director, Familial Dementia Neuroimaging Lab and Director, Multicultural Alzheimer’s Prevention Program, Massachusetts General Hospital; Paul B. and Sandra M. Edgerley MGH Research Scholar; Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

Heidi Rehm, PhD

Chief Genomics Officer, Massachusetts General Hospital; Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School

Leonardo Riella, MD, PhD

Medical Director of Kidney Transplantation, Massachusetts General Hospital; Harold and Ellen Danser Endowed Chair in Transplantation, Harvard Medical School

Jorge Rodriguez, MD

Clinician-investigator, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

Adam Ron

Health Care Facilities and Managed Care Analyst, BofA Global Research

David Ryan, MD

Physician-in-Chief, Mass General Brigham Cancer; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Michael Ryskin

Life Science Tools & Diagnostics Analyst, BofA Global Research

Alkesh Shah

Head of US Equity Software Research, BofA Global Research

Angela Shen, MD

Vice President, Strategic Innovation Leaders, Mass General Brigham Innovation

Gregory Simon

President, Simonovation

Prabhjot Singh, MD, PhD

Senior Advisor, Strategic Initiatives Peterson Health Technology Institute

Brendan Singleton

Healthcare Equity Capital Markets, BofA Securities

Caroline Sokol, MD, PhD

Assistant Physician, Massachusetts General Hospital; Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

Daniel Solomon, MD

Matthew H. Liang Distinguished Chair in Arthritis and Population Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Scott Solomon, MD

Director, Clinical Trials Outcomes Center; Edward D. Frohlich Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Pathophysiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Fatima Cody Stanford, MD

Obesity Medicine Physician Scientist, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

Shannon Stott, PhD

Associate Investigator, Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research and Mass General Cancer Center; d’Arbeloff Research Scholar, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Investigator, Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research Harvard Medical School

Alec Stranahan, PhD

SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

Marc Succi, MD

Executive Director, Mass General Brigham MESH Incubator; Associate Chair of Innovation & Commercialization, Mass General Brigham Radiology; Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

Guillermo Tearney, MD, PhD

Principal Investigator, Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital; Remondi Family Endowed MGH Research Institute Chair; Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School

David Ting, MD

Associate Clinical Director for Innovation, Mass General Cancer Center; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Raul Uppot, MD

Interventional Radiologist, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

Chris Varma, PhD

Co-founder, Chairman & CEO, Frontier Medicines

Kaveeta Vasisht, MD, PharmD

Associate Commissioner, Women’s Health, U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Alexandra-Chloé Villani PhD

Investigator, Massachusetts General Hospital; Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

Kate Walsh

Secretary of Health and Human Services, State of Massachusetts

David Walt, PhD

Professor of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard Medical School

Jennifer Warner-Schmidt, PhD

Vice President, Scientific Affairs, Transcend Therapeutics

Renee Wegrzyn, PhD

Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health

Christoph Westphal, MD, PhD

General Partner, Longwood Fund

Deborah Wexler, MD

Chief, Diabetes Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Charlie Yang, PhD

Large/SMid-Cap Biotech and Major Pharma Analyst, BofA Global Research

Nathan Yozwiak, PhD

Head of Research, Gene and Cell Therapy Institute, Mass General Brigham

Jason Zemansky, PhD

SMid-Cap Biotech Analyst, BofA Global Research

Alice Zheng, MD

Principal, RH Capital

We continue to confirm more speakers. Please check back regularly for updates.

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Drug Development Process been Revolutionized by Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technologies

Curators: Stephen J. Williams, PhD and Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

 

The Voice of Stephen J. Williams, PhD

LPBI Group, CSO

PENDING

The Voice of Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

1.0 LPBI Group and 2.0 LPBI Group, Founder

With the advent of AI in the last 5-7 years in our fields: Pharmaceutical, Life Sciences and Medicine, LPBI Group had launched several initiatives to advance the frontier of knowledge by using our own contents repositories of +8 giga bytes for experimenting with Machine Learning (ML) technologies for Medical Text Analysis.

These AI Technologies include

  • Natural Language Processing (NLP): Statistical ML and Deep Learning ML
  • ChatGPT and GPT-4
  • Generative AI
A quote by Brad Power, Co-founder and CEO, Cancer Patient Lab made in January 2024
LPBI Group is in the admirable position of sitting on a treasure trove of medical literature that would be useful input in the current environment of customized ChatGPTs looking for reliable medical content.

In the Drug Development (DD) field, AI technologies are been employed  chiefly, for these tasks:

(a) Generation of molecular information libraries

(b) Explorations and combinatorial experiments on protein structures, and

(c) measurements of biochemical interactions

The A.I. learns from patterns in the data to suggest possible useful drug candidates, as if matching chemical keys to the right protein locks.

Because A.I. for drug development is powered by precise scientific data, toxic “hallucinations” are far less likely than with more broadly trained chatbots. And any potential drug must undergo extensive testing in labs and in clinical trials before it is approved for patients.

“Generative A.I. is transforming the field, but the drug-development process is messy and very human,” said David Baker, a biochemist and director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington.

As of December 2023,

  • 24 AI-discovered molecules had completed Phase I trials, with 21 of them being successful. This success rate of 80–90% is higher than the historical industry average of 40–65%. 
  • In Phase II trials, the success rate is around 40%, which is similar to the historical average. 

SOURCE

AI Overview

https://www.google.com/search?q=A.I.-developed+drugs+are+in+clinical+trials&oq=A.I.-developed+drugs+are+in+clinical+trials&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigAdIBCTIxNzZqMGoxNagCCLACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

Examples of drugs developed by AI technologies:

NCI definition of AI Drugs:

AI drug

A drug that blocks the activity of an enzyme called aromatase, which the body uses to make estrogen in the ovaries and other tissues. Blocking aromatase lowers the amount of estrogen made by the body, which may stop the growth of cancer cells that need estrogen to grow. AI drugs are used to treat some types of breast cancer or to keep it from coming back. They may also be used to help prevent breast cancer in some women who are at a high risk of developing it. Examples of AI drugs are anastrozole, letrozole, and exemestane. AI drugs are a type of hormone therapy. Also called aromatase inhibitor.
 

SOURCE

https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/ai-drug

 

More examples of AI Drugs, Drugs developed with AI technologies

#1: 

INS018_055
Developed by Insilico Medicine, a Hong Kong-based biotech startup, to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). IPF is a chronic lung disease that causes scarring and can be fatal if left untreated. In January 2023, Insilico Medicine announced positive results from a Phase I safety trial of INS018_055. In February 2023, the FDA granted breakthrough status to a small molecule inhibitor identified by Insilico Medicine’s AI platforms for the drug. As of November 2023, INS018_055 was in mid-stage trials in the US and China, with some results expected in early 2025.
 
The first fully A.I. -generated drug enters clinical trials in human patients. Insilico Medicine, a Hong Kong-based biotech startup with more than $400 million in funding, created the drug as a treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease.Jun 29, 2023
 
  • Schrödinger’s AI-driven platform
    Uses predictive modeling to optimize the molecular structure of drugs. AI is expected to integrate more advanced simulation techniques, such as quantum computing, to more accurately predict molecular behavior.

Drug discovery software developer Schrodinger Inc. (NASDAQ: SDGR) stock has been trying to recover after plummeting over 80% off its all-time high of $117 in January 2021. Schrodinger’s artificial intelligence (AI) powered software technology platform utilizes physics-based modeling and sophisticated machine learning algorithms to help clients identify the suitable molecules to treat the desired ailments. Its programs can help predict the behavior of molecules and potential outcomes.

This entails finding suitable molecules that effectively target specific cells and proteins, transcend through cell walls, are absorbed and dissolved well without interfering with other drugs or producing bad reactions to other drugs, and are scalable.

Big Name Pharma Customers of Schrödinger, Inc.

Its technology platform allows for the faster and cheaper discovery of novel molecules with a higher success rate than traditional methods. Its clients include the top 20 pharmaceutical companies in the world, including Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE)Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK), Takeda, AstraZeneca PLC (NYSE: AZN), and GlaxoSmithKline plc  (NYSE: GSK). It closed new agreements with Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE: LLY) and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals out of Tokyo, Japan.

SOURCE

Schrodinger is an AI-Powered Drug Discovery Developer to Watch

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/schrodinger-is-an-ai-powered-drug-discovery-developer-to-watch

 

Schrodinger’s Pipelines include:

  • SGR-1505 (MALT1)

Hematologic Malignancies

DISCOVERYPRECLINICALPHASE 1
 
  • SGR-2921 (CDC7)

AML/MDS

DISCOVERYPRECLINICALPHASE 1
 
  • SGR-3515 (Wee1/Myt1)

Solid Tumors

DISCOVERYPRECLINICALPHASE 1
 
  • SOS1

Oncology

DISCOVERYPRECLINICALPHASE 1
 
  • PRMT5-MTA

Oncology

DISCOVERYPRECLINICALPHASE 1
 
  • EGFRC797S

Oncology

DISCOVERYPRECLINICALPHASE 1
 
  • NLRP3

Immunology

DISCOVERYPRECLINICALPHASE 1
 
  • LRRK2

Neurology

DISCOVERYPRECLINICALPHASE 1
 
  • Undisclosed Programs

Multiple Areas

SOURCE

https://www.schrodinger.com/pipeline/#Proprietary-Pipeline

 

In high-tech labs, workers are generating data to train A.I. algorithms to design better medicine, faster. But the transformation is just getting underway.

Terray Therapeutics campus in Monrovia, Calif., June 17, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/17/business/ai-drugs-development-terray.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

 

Five AI drug discovery companies you should know about

  1. Atomwise 
  2. Cradle 
  3. Exscientia 
  4. Iktos 
  5. Insilico Medicine 

According to Grand View Research, the global AI in drug discovery market size was valued at $1.1 billion in 2022, and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.6% from 2023 to 2030. The report states that the growing demand for the discovery and development of novel drug therapies and increasing manufacturing capacities of the life science industry are driving the demand for AI-empowered solutions in the drug discovery processes. 

As this report suggests, AI for drug discovery is clearly a growing field within the biopharma industry. Inevitably, as it grows even larger, we will see more companies come to the forefront of the field, hoping to change the face of drug discovery – and also the biopharma industry as a whole – so that the entire drug development process can become faster, more consistent, more accurate, and more scalable.

SOURCE

https://www.labiotech.eu/best-biotech/ai-drug-discovery-companies/#:~:text=to%20%2433%20million.-,Exscientia,manner%20using%20its%20AI%20technology.

 

At LPBI Group, Of Note is our Journal PharmaceuticalIntelligence.com

it represents our commitment to AI technologies in the following research categories and How many articles have been written in each of these topics: 

  • A total of x articles have been categorized 511 times among the following Artificial Intelligence research categories

Artificial Intelligence – General

113

An executive’s guide to AI

9

Artificial Intelligence – Breakthroughs in Theories and Technologies

94

Artificial Intelligence Applications in Health Care

81

Artificial Intelligence in CANCER

29

Artificial Intelligence in Health Care – Tools & Innovations

55

Artificial Intelligence in Medicine – Application for Diagnosis

44

Artificial intelligence applications for cardiology

21

AI-assisted Cardiac MRI

9

Artificial Intelligence in Psychiatry

5

Artificial Intelligence in Medicine – Applications in Therapeutics

50

 

LPBI Group’s involvement in Conceptual Drug Development covers the following two areas:

DrugDiscovery @LPBI Group, 2016 – 2018

Synthetic Biology in Drug Discovery, 2021 – Present

 

Applications of Artificial Intelligence to Medicine

Artificial Intelligence: Genomics & Cancer, 2021 – Present

Medicine with GPT-4 & ChatGPT, 2023 – Present

 

LPBI Group commitment to Medical Text Analysis using Machine Learning

2021-2025 Medical Text Analysis (NLP), 2020 – Present

ChatGPT + Wolfram PlugIn, 2023 – Present

 

LPBI Group Team members published two books on Drug Delivery Technologies

We had covered drug delivery technologies in two of our books. See all the Books: 

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Aviva+Lev-Ari&i=digital-text&rh=n%3A133140011&ref=nb_sb_noss

 

  • Series E, Volume Four 

Medical 3D BioPrinting – The Revolution in Medicine, Technologies for Patient-centered Medicine: From R&D in Biologics to New Medical Devices. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078QVDV2W

and

  • Series C, Volume Two 

Cancer Therapies: Metabolic, Genomics, Interventional, Immunotherapy and Nanotechnology in Therapy Delivery (Series C Book 2).

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VQ6YYK

 

The Table of Contents of these two book can be found in our

Spanish-language Edition, as well

  • Serie E, Volumen 4

Bioimpresión médica en 3D: la revolución de la medicina: Tecnologías para una medicina centrada en el paciente: de la I+D en agentes biológicos a los nuevos … en el paciente nº 4) (Spanish Edition) 2023

(Spanish Edition) Kindle Edition

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRNVDB1P $56

 

  • Serie C, Volumen 2

Tratamientos contra el cáncer: Metabólicos, genómicos, intervencionistas, inmunoterapia y nanotecnología para la administración de tratamientos (Serie … y la oncología nº 2) 2022

(Spanish Edition) Kindle Edition

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQTM44SM $75

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The Health Care Dossier on Clarivate PLC: How Cortellis Is Changing the Life Sciences Industry

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarivate 

Clarivate Plc is a British-American publicly traded analytics company that operates a collection of subscription-based services, in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometricsbusiness / market intelligence, and competitive profiling for pharmacy and biotechpatents, and regulatory compliancetrademark protection, and domain and brand protection. In the academy and the scientific community, Clarivate is known for being the company that calculates the impact factor,[4] using data from its Web of Science product family, that also includes services/applications such as PublonsEndNoteEndNote Click, and ScholarOne. Its other product families are Cortellis, DRG, CPA Global, Derwent, MarkMonitor, CompuMark, and Darts-ip, [3] and also the various ProQuest products and services.

Clarivate was formed in 2016, following the acquisition of Thomson Reuters‘ Intellectual Property and Science business by Onex Corporation and Baring Private Equity Asia. Clarivate has acquired various companies since then, including, notably, ProQuest in 2021.

Further information: Thomson Scientific

Clarivate (formerly CPA Global) was formerly the Intellectual Property and Science division of Thomson Reuters. Before 2008, it was known as Thomson Scientific. In 2016, Thomson Reuters struck a $3.55 billion deal in which they spun it off as an independent company, and sold it to private-equity firms Onex Corporation and Baring Private Equity Asia.

In May 2019, Clarivate merged with the Churchill Capital Corp SPAC to obtain a public listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) It currently trades with symbol NYSE:CLVT.

Acquisitions

  • June 1, 2017: Publons, a platform for researchers to share recognition for peer review.
  • April 10, 2018: Kopernio, AI-tech startup providing ability to search for full-text versions of selected scientific journal articles.
  • October 30, 2018: TrademarkVision, provider of Artificial Intelligence (AI) trademark research applications.
  • September 9, 2019: SequenceBase, provider of patent sequence information and search technology to the biotech, pharmaceutical and chemical industries.
  • December 2, 2019: Darts-ip, provider of case law data and analytics for intellectual property (IP) professionals.
  • January 17, 2020: Decision Resources Group (DRG), a leading healthcare research and consulting company, providing high-value healthcare industry analysis and insights.
  • June 22, 2020: CustomersFirst Now, in intellectual property (“IP”) software and tech-enabled services.
  • October 1, 2020: CPA Global, intellectual property (“IP”) software and tech-enabled services.
  • December 1, 2021: ProQuest, software, data and analytics provider to academic, research and national institutions.[27]It was acquired for $5.3 billion from Cambridge Information Group in what was described as a “huge deal in the library and information publishing world”. The company said that the operational concept behind the acquisition was integrating ProQuest’s products and applications with Web of Science. Chairman of ProQuest Andy Snyder became the vice chairman of Clarivate. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, an advocacy group for open access to scholarship, voiced antitrust concerns. The acquisition had been delayed mid-year due to a Federal Trade Commission antitrust probe.

Divestments

How Clarivate Has Changed Since 2019

2019 Strategy

From 2019 Manager Discussion Yearly Report

We are a leading global information services and analytics company serving the scientific research, intellectual property and life sciences end-markets. We provide structured information and analytics to facilitate the discovery, protection and commercialization of scientific research, innovations and brands.  Our product porfolio includes well-established market-leading brands such as Web of Science, Derwent Innovation, Life Sciences, CompuMark and MarkMonitor (which they later divested).  We believe that the stron balue proposition of our content, user interfaces, visualization and analytical tools, combined with the integration of our products and services into customers’ daily workflows, leads to our substantial customer loyalty as evidenced by their willingness to renew subscriptions with us.

Our structure, enabling a sharp focus on cross-selling opportunities within markets, is comprised of two product groups:

  • Science Group: consists of Web of Science and Life Science Product Lines
  • Intellectual Property Group: consists of Derwent, CompuMark and MarkMonitor

Corporations, government agencies, universities, law firms depend on our high-value curated content, analytics and services.  Unstructured data has grown exponentially over the last decade.  The trend has resulted in a critical need for unstructured data to be meaningfully filtered, analyzed and curated into relvent information that facilitates key operational and strategic decision making.  Our highly curated, proprietary information created through our sourcing, aggregation, verification, translation, and categorization (ONTOLOGY) of data has resulted in our solutions being embedded in our customers’ workflow and decision-making processes.

Overview of Clarivate PLC five year strategy in 2019. Note that in 2019 the Science Group accounted for 56.2% of revenue! This was driven by their product Cortellis!

Figure.  Overview of Clarivate PLC five year strategy in 2019. Note that in 2019 the Science Group accounted for 56.2% of revenue! This was driven by their product Cortellis!

Also Note nowhere in the M&A Discussion in years before 2023 was anything mentioned concerning AI or Large Language Models.

The Clarivate of Today:  Built for Life Sciences with Cortellis

Clarivate PLC has integrated multiple platforms into their offering Cortellis, which integrated AI and LLM into the structured knowledge bases (see more at https://clarivate.com/products/cortellis-family/)

“Life sciences organizations are tasked, now more than ever, to discover and develop treatments that challenge the status quo, increase ROI, and improve patient lives. However, its become increasingly difficult to find, integrate and analyze the key data your teams need to make critical decisions and get your Cortellis products to patients faster.

The Cortellis solutions help research and developmentportfolio strategy and business development, and regulatory and compliance professionals gather and assess the information you need to discover innovative drugs, differentiate your treatments, and increase chances of successful regulatory approval.

Some of Cortellis solutions include:

  1. Cortellis Competitive Intelligence: maximize ROI and improve patient outcomes
  2. Cortellis Deals Intelligence: Portfolio Strategy and Business Development (find best deal)
  3. Cortellis Clinical Intelligence: Clinical Trial Support and Regulatory
  4. Cortellis Digital Health Intelligence: understand digital health ecosystem
  5. Cortellis Drug Discovery: improve drug development speed and efficiency
  6. MetaBase and MetaCore: integrated omics knowledge bases for drug discovery
  7. Cortellis Regulatory: help with filings
  8. Cortellis HTA: health tech compliance (HIPAA)
  9. CMC Intelligence: new drug marketing
  10. Generics Intelligence
  11. Drug Safety Intelligence: both preclinical safety and post marketing pharmacovigilence

Watch Videos on Cortellis for Drug Discovery

Watch Video on Qiagen Site to see how Cortellis Integrates with Qiagen Omics Platform IPA with Clarivate Meta Core to gain more insights into genomic and proteomic data

https://digitalinsights.qiagen.com/products-overview/discovery-insights-portfolio/analysis-and-visualization/qiagen-ipa/?cmpid=QDI_GA_Comp&gad_source=2&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwu6HtvHGhQMVnZ9aBR1iCgHTEAEYASAAEgJiWPD_BwE

From the Qiagen website on Ingenuity Pathway Analysis: https://digitalinsights.qiagen.com/products-overview/discovery-insights-portfolio/analysis-and-visualization/qiagen-ipa/ 

Understand complex ‘omics data to accelerate your research

Discover why QIAGEN Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) is the leading pathway analysis application among the life science research community and is cited in tens of thousands of articles for the analysis, integration and interpretation of data derived from ‘omics experiments. Such experiments include:

  • RNA-seq
  • Small RNA-seq
  • Metabolomics
  • Proteomics
  • Microarrays including miRNA and SNP
  • Small-scale experiments

With QIAGEN IPA you can predict downstream effects and identify new targets or candidate biomarkers. QIAGEN Ingenuity Pathway Analysis helps you perform insightful data analysis and interpretation to understand your experimental results within the context of various biological systems.

Articles Relevant to Drug Development, Natural Language Processing in Drug Development, and Clarivate on this Open Access Scientific Journal Include:

The Use of ChatGPT in the World of BioInformatics and Cancer Research and Development of BioGPT by MIT

From High-Throughput Assay to Systems Biology: New Tools for Drug Discovery

Medical Startups – Artificial Intelligence (AI) Startups in Healthcare

New York Academy of Sciences Symposium: The New Wave of AI in Healthcare 2024. May 1-2, 2024 New York City, NY

Clarivate Analytics – a Powerhouse in IP assets and in Pharmaceuticals Informercials

Read Full Post »

Live Notes from JP Morgan Healthcare Conference Virtual Endpoints Preview: January 8-9 2024

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

Endpoints at #JPM24 | Primed to unlock biopharma’s next dealmaking wave
Endpoints at JP Morgan Healthcare Conference
January 8-9 | San Francisco, CA80 Mission St, San Francisco, CA

An oasis has emerged in the biopharma money desert as backers look to replenish capital — still, uncertainty remains on whether it’s a mirage or the much needed dealmaking bump the industry needs. Yet spirits run high as JPM24 marks the triumphant return of inking strategic alliances and peering into the industry crystal ball — while keeping an eye out for some major M&A.

We’re back live from San Francisco for JPM Monday and Tuesday — our calendar of can’t-miss panels and fireside chats will feature prominent biopharma leaders to watch. The Endpoints Hub provides the ultimate coworking space with everything you need — 1:1 and group meeting spots plus guest pass capabilities and more. Join us in-person at the Endpoints Hub or watch online to stay plugged into all the action.

8 JAN
Welcome remarks
8:05 AM – 8:25 AM PST
Pfizer vet Mikael Dolsten has some thoughts on Big Pharma R&D

Endpoints News founding editor John Carroll will sit down with longtime Pfizer CSO Mikael Dolsten to talk about Pfizer’s pipeline, what he’s learned on the job about preclinical research and development and what’s ahead for the pharma giant in drug development and deals.

Mikael Dolsten

Chief Scientific Officer, President, Pfizer Research & Development

Pfizer

Pfizer Mikael Dolsten: Pfizer produced a series of AI generated molecules with new properties. Sees rapid adoption of AI in the area of drug discovery and molecular design.

 
 
8:25 AM – 9:05 AM PST
What pharma wants: The industry’s dealmakers look ahead at 2024

The drug industry’s appetite for new assets hasn’t slowed down. Top business development execs will give their outlook on the year, what they’re looking for and how they see the market.

Glenn Hunzinger

Pharmaceutical & Life Sciences Consulting Solutions Leader

PwC US

Rachna Khosla

SVP, Head of Business Development

Amgen

James Sabry

Global Head of Pharma Partnering

Roche

Devang Bhuva

SVP, Corporate Development

Gilead Sciences, Inc.

Endpoints News

Dealmaking panel

Glenn Hunzinger: if you do not have a GLP1 will have a tough time getting a good market price for your company; capital markets are not where they want to be; sees a tough deal making climate like last year.  The problem with many biotech companies are they are coming earlier to the venture capital because of greater funding needs and so it is imperative that they articulate the potential of their company in scientific detail

Rachna Khosla:  Make sure your investors are not just CAPITAL PARTNERS but use their expertise and involve them in development issues you may have, especially ones that a young firm will face.  The problem is most investments assume what the future looks like (for example how antibody drug conjugates, once a field left for dead, has been rejuvenated because of advances in chemistry). 

James Sabry: noted that cardiac and metabolic drugs are now at the focus of many investors, especially with the new anti-obesity drugs on market

Devang Bhuva: Most deals we see start as collaborations or partnerships.  You want to involve an alliance management team early in the deal making process.  This process could take years.

 
9:05 AM – 9:20 AM PST
The IPO: How Apogee Therapeutics went public in the most challenging market in years

Not many biotechs went public in 2023. And of those that did, not many have had a great time of it. Apogee is the exception and our panel will offer a behind-the-scenes look at their decision to enter the market and what life is like as a young public company.

Michael Henderson

CEO

Apogee Therapeutics

Kyle LaHucik

MODERATOR

Senior Reporter

Endpoints News

Michael Henderson:  Not many biotech IPOs deals happened in 2023.  Michael feels it is because too many biotechs focused on building platforms, which was a hard sell in 2023.  He felt not many biotechs had clear milestones and investors wanted a clear primary validated target.  He said many biotech startups are in a funding crunch and most need at least $440M on their balance sheet to get to 2026.

9:50 AM – 10:10 AM PST
Top predictions for biotech in 2024

Catalent CEO Alessandro Maselli will be back at the big JPM healthcare confab to talk with Endpoints News founder John Carroll about their top predictions of what’s coming up for the biotech industry in 2024. The stakes couldn’t be higher as the industry grapples with headwinds and new opportunities in a gale of market forces. Two top observers share their thoughts on the year ahead.

Alessandro Maselli

President & CEO

Catalent

10:15 AM – 10:35 AM PST
Innovation at a crossroads: Keys to unlocking the value of science and technology

The industry has long discussed the promise of technology and the acceleration it provides in scientific advancement and across the industry value chain. However, the promise of its impact has yet to fully be realized. This discussion will outline the keys to unleashing this promise and the implications and actions to be taken by the biopharmaceutical companies across the industry.

Ray Pressburger

North America Life Sciences Industry Lead & Global Life Sciences Strategy Lead

Accenture

SPONSORED BY

10:35 AM – 11:05 AM PST
Activism and Investing: In conversation with Elliott Investment Management’s Marc Steinberg

Elliott has been behind many of 2023’s highest-profile healthcare investments, including multiple activist engagements and taking Syneos Health private. What has made large healthcare companies such interesting investment opportunities for firms like Elliott? What’s Elliott’s investing strategy in healthcare? And what should companies expect when an activist calls?

Marc Steinberg

Senior Portfolio Manager

Elliott Investment Management

Andrew Dunn

MODERATOR

Biopharma Correspondent

Endpoints News

11:05 AM – 11:35 AM PST
Creating ROI from AI

AI is predicted to transform the way drugs are made, from discovery to clinical trials to market. But beyond the initial hype and early adoption, where has AI made meaningful contributions to R&D? How does it help drug developers advance science? Endpoints publisher Arsalan Arif is convening a panel of leading experts to discuss the state of AI in the pharmaceutical landscape and the outlook for 2024. How does AI impact the drug pipeline, from the early steps of discovery to reducing trial failure rate?

Thomas Clozel

Co-Founder & CEO

Owkin

Venkat Sethuraman

SVP, Global Biometrics & Data Sciences

Bristol Myers Squibb

Frank O. Nestle

Global Head of Research & Chief Scientific Officer

Sanofi

Matthias Evers

Chief Business Officer

Evotec

Arsalan Arif

MODERATOR

Founder & Publisher

Endpoints News

SPONSORED BY

11:35 AM – 12:00 PM PST
Biopharma’s dealmaker: Behind the scenes with Centerview Partners co-president Eric Tokat

Almost every major biopharma deal in 2023 had Centerview’s name attached to it. And much of the time, Eric Tokat was the banker making those deals happen. Hear his outlook for 2024, how transactions are getting done and what’s placed his firm at the center of so much action.

E. Eric Tokat

Co-President, Investment Banking

Centerview Partners

CenterView Partners Eric Tokat feels dealmaking will improve in 2024, given the recent flurry of dealmaking at end of last year and right before main JPM Healthcare Conference.  He says Centerview wants to help the biotechs they invest in on their strategic path.  This may translate into buyers more actively involved (more than startups want) and buyers now are in the drivers seat as far as the timeline of deals and development.

Is the megamerger dead for this year?  He says it is very hard to see two major mergers happening but there will be many smaller and mid size biotech deals happening, but these deals will be more speculative in nature..  The focus for large pharma is top line growth.  Most of the buyers have an infrastructure and value is more of buying and dropping it in their business so there is now a huge emphasis on due diligence on whether synergies exist or not

 
12:00 PM – 12:30 PM PST
Founder, legend, leader: In conversation with Nobel laureate Carolyn Bertozzi

Carolyn Bertozzi’s discoveries around bioorthogonal chemistry won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2022 and are at the heart of new therapies being tested in patients. Join us as we discuss what inspires her and where she sees the next big advances.

Carolyn Bertozzi

Prof. of Chemistry, Stanford University and Baker Family Director of Sarafan ChEM-H

Stanford University

Nicole DeFeudis

MODERATOR

Editor

Endpoints News

Bioorthogonal chemistry: class of high yielding chemical reactions that proceed rapidly and selectively in biological environments without side reactions toward endogenous functions.  This is also a type of ‘click chemistry’ in biological system where only specifically alter the biomolecule of interest.

Orthogonal: two chemicals not interacting with each other

Dr. Bertozzi noted she has started a new Antibody-Drug-Conjugate (ADC) company which involves designing with biorthogonal chemistry to make new functional molecules with varying properties

She noted hardly any biologists knew anything about glycobiology when she first started.  However now she feels pharma and academia are working very well with each other

Bioorthogonal and Click Chemistry
Curated by Prof. Carolyn R. Bertozzi, 2022 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Source: https://pubs.acs.org/page/vi/bioorthogonal-click-chemistry

The 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded jointly to ACS Central Science Editor-in-Chief, Carolyn R. Bertozzi of Stanford University, Morten Meldal of the University of Copenhagen, and K. Barry Sharpless of Scripps Research, for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.

To celebrate this remarkable achievement, 2022 Nobel Prize winner Professor Carolyn R. Bertozzi has curated this Bioorthogonal and Click Chemistry Virtual Issue, highlighting papers published across ACS journals that have built upon the foundational work in this exciting area of chemistry.

From Mechanism to Mouse: A Tale of Two Bioorthogonal Reactions

Ellen M. Sletten and Carolyn R. Bertozzi* Acc. Chem. Res. 2011, 44, 9, 666-676 August 15, 2011

Abstract

Bioorthogonal reactions are chemical reactions that neither interact with nor interfere with a biological system. The participating functional groups must be inert to biological moieties, must selectively reactive with each other under biocompatible conditions, and, for in vivo applications, must be nontoxic to cells and organisms. Additionally, it is helpful if one reactive group is small and therefore minimally perturbing of a biomolecule into which it has been introduced either chemically or biosynthetically. Examples from the past decade suggest that a promising strategy for bioorthogonal reaction development begins with an analysis of functional group and reactivity space outside those defined by nature. Issues such as stability of reactants and products (particularly in water), kinetics, and unwanted side reactivity with biofunctionalities must be addressed, ideally guided by detailed mechanistic studies. Finally, the reaction must be tested in a variety of environments, escalating from aqueous media to biomolecule solutions to cultured cells and, for the most optimized transformations, to live organisms.

9 JAN

9:40 AM – 10:10 AM PST

Biotech downturn survival school

Our panelists have seen the worst, and made it through to the other side. Join us for downturn survival school as our panelists talk about what sets apart the ones who make it through tough times.

These panalists think it will be specialist capital year to shine while the general capital is still sitting on the sidelines

JJ Kang

CEO

Appia Bio

“2023 was a tough year while 2020 was a boon year to start a company.  We will continue to see these cycles; many of these new CEOs have never seen a biotech downturn yet and may not know how to preserve capital for the downturn”.

“Doing a partnership with Kite Pharmaceuticals early in our startp allowed us to get work done without risking a lot of capital, even if it means equity and asset dilution.  That makes sense. However even if you are small insist on being an equal partner.”

“There are many investors we talk to who do not want to invest in cell therapy.  Too risky now”

Carl Gordon

Managing Partner

OrbiMed Advisors

There are many macroeconomic factors affecting investment and capital today which will carry on through 2024.   Not raising money when you do not need money is a bad philosophy.  Always bbe raising captial.  This is especially true when you have to rely on hedge funds.  Parnerships howeve are sometimes the only way for small biotechs to leverage their strengths.

Joshua Boger

Executive Chair

Alkeus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Boger: Expect volatility for 2024.  This environment feels very different than past downturns.

Even in downturns there is still lots of capital; remember access to human capital is better in a downturn and is easier to access;  however it has become harder to get drug approvals

The panelists agree that access to capital and funding will be as tricky in 2024 than 2023.  They did

suggest that a new funding avenue, private credit, may be a source of capital.  This is discussed below:

When thinking about a private alternative investment asset class, the first thing that springs to mind is private equity. But there’s one more asset class with the word private in its name that has recently gained much attention. We’re talking about private credit

Indeed, this once little-known investment strategy is now growing rapidly in popularity, offering private investors worldwide an exciting opportunity to diversify their portfolio with, in theory, less risky investments that yield significant returns. 

  • Private credit investments refer to investors lending money to companies who then repay the loan at a given interest rate within the predetermined period.
  • The private credit market has grown significantly over the past years, rising from $875 million in 2020 to $1.4 trillion at the beginning of 2023. 

Please WATCH VIDEO BY GOLDMAN SACHS ON PRIVATE CREDIT

 

 

 

 

10:50 AM – 11:20 AM PST

The New Molecule: How breakthrough technologies are actually changing pharma R&D

Join us for a look at how AI, machine learning and generative technologies are actually being applied inside drugmakers’ labs. We’ll explore how new technologies are being used, their implications, how they intersect with regulatory and IP issues and how this fast-changing field is likely to evolve.

Kailash Swarna

Managing Director & Global Life Sciences Clinical Development Lead

Accenture

Artificial Intelligence is making impact in a grand way on biology in three aspects:

  1. Speeding up target validation: now we can get through 300 molecules a day
  2. Predicition like AlphaFold is doing; molecular simulations
  3. Document submission especially with regulatory and IND submissions

Pamela Carroll

COO

Isomorphic Labs formerly of AlphaFold

We were first with Novartis at last year JPM and was one year old but parnering with them in that initial year was very important for sealing the deal.

They are looking now at neurologic diseases like ALS.  She wondered whether ALS is actually multiple diseases and we need to stratify patients like we do in oncology trials.  Their main competion is the whole tech world like Amazon, Google and other Machine Learning companies so being a tech player in the biotech world means you are not just competing with other biotechs but large tech companies as well.

Jorge Conde

General Partner

Andreessen Horowitz

Need is still great for drug discovery; early adopters show AI tools can be used in big pharma. There are lots of applications of AI in managing care; a lot of back office applications including patient triaging.  He does not see big AI mergers with pharma companies –  this will be mainly partnerships not M&A deals

Alicyn Campbell

Chief Scientific Officer

Evinova, a Healthtech Subsidiary of the AstraZeneca Group

There is a need to turn AI for real world example.  For example AI tools were used in clinical trials to determine patient cohorts with pneumonitis.  At Evinova they are determining how AI can hel[p show clinical benefit with respect to efficacy and safety

Joshua Boger at #JPM24 (Brian Benton Photography)

  January 12, 2024 09:06 AM ESTUpdated 10:00 AM PeopleStartups

Vertex founder Joshua Boger on surviving downturns, ‘painful’ partnerships, and the importance of culture: #JPM24

Andrew Dunn

Biopharma Correspondent

Source: https://endpts.com/jpm24-vertex-founder-joshua-boger-on-surviving-downturns-painful-partnerships-and-the-importance-of-culture/

While the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference was full of voices of measured optimism, rooting for the market to bounce back in 2024, one longtime biotech leader warned against setting any firm expectations.

Instead of predicting when the downturn may end, Vertex Pharmaceuticals founder Joshua Boger said he advises biotech leaders to expect — and plan for — volatility. Speaking Tuesday on an Endpoints News panel alongside OrbiMed’s Carl Gordon and Appia Bio CEO JJ Kang, Boger shared lessons learned on surviving downturns, striking pharma deals, and the importance of keeping a company’s culture based on his two decades of founding and leading Vertex as CEO from 1989 to 2009. The 72-year-old is now serving as executive chairman of Alkeus Pharmaceuticals, a startup developing a rare disease drug.

“I never experienced a straight line up,” Boger said. “Everything had its cycles, and it was how you respond to the cycle, not by predicting when the end is going to be, but just by responding to the present situation.”

At Boger’s first appearance at the JP Morgan conference in 1991, he said the conference’s theme was the end of biotech financing. Just a few months later, Regeneron successfully went public, rapidly changing the outlook for the whole field.

“We had no idea we were ever going to take public money,” he said. “When Regeneron did their IPO, we went, ‘Whoa, there’s something happening here,’ and we pivoted quickly.”

Vertex went public later that year. Throughout his 20-year tenure, Boger said no pharma company ever made an acquisition offer for Vertex, which now commands a market value of $110 billion and recently won the first FDA approval for a CRISPR gene editing therapy.

“We had an uber corporate policy to always make ourselves more expensive than anyone would stomach,” Boger said.

However, Vertex did strike a range of partnerships with Big Pharmas, which Boger described as a painful but necessary part of running a biotech startup.

“It’s impossible for a partnership not to slow you down,” he said. “You can and should try as hard as you can not to do that, but just count on it. They’ll slow you down.”

Boger said startups should insist on being equal partners in pharma deals, at least making sure they have a seat at a partner’s development meetings.

“Realize they’re going to be painful, it’s going to be horrible, and you need to do it,” Boger said.

While Vertex suffered through layoffs, stock price plunges, and trial failures, Boger credited a focus on culture as key to its long-term success.

“It’s the most important ingredient for a successful company,” he said. “Technology is acquirable. Culture is not acquirable. There are 10 companies that will fail because of culture for every one that succeeds, and the successful companies in retrospect will almost always have special cultural aspects that kept them through those downtimes.”

JPM24 opens with ADCs the hottest ticket in San Francisco

By Annalee ArmstrongJan 8, 2024 6:30am

Source: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/jpm24-opens-adcs-hottest-ticket-san-francisco

The overall deal flow in biopharma tapered off in 2023 but the big companies sure know what they want (what they really, really want), according to a new report from J.P. Morgan.

And that’s antibody-drug conjugates, which drove a fourth-quarter spike in licensing deal proceeds and provided a glimmer of hope to an industry battered by outside forces and grim financing prospects.

J.P. Morgan’s annual 2023 Biopharma Licensing and Venture Report arrived on the eve of the firm’s famous conference, which is set to welcome thousands of attendees in San Francisco today—East Coast weather permitting.

2023 was tough, but clinical biotechs still had a lot of opportunities to wheel and deal, according to J.P. Morgan. While licensing deals, venture investments, M&A and IPOs were down overall in the fourth quarter, deal values stayed fairly high thanks to a flurry of late-stage tie ups.

Follow the Fierce team’s coverage of the 2024 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference here

Biopharma licensing partnerships accounted for $63 billion in total value during the fourth quarter from 108 deals. Just one deal—Merck’s ADC partnership with Daiichi Sankyo—accounted for $22 billion of that. Another huge one was another ADC bet, with Bristol Myers Squibb signing on to work with SystImmune for a total value of $8.4 billion. If you exclude the Merck deal, the total value of these partnerships is still higher than the previous quarter, which ended with $32.1 billion.

The total number of licensing deals compares to 149 in the same quarter a year earlier, 195 for Q4 2021 and 223 for Q4 2022.

As for venture investments, the year closed out with $17 billion total across 250 rounds, thanks to $3.5 billion earned through 79 rounds in the last quarter. Aiolos Bio snagged the title of largest venture round of the quarter with $245 million, which also proved to be the largest series A, too.

There was just one IPO in all of the fourth quarter—Cargo Therapeutics making the plunge for $300 million—and 13 overall for the year. It’s a far cry from the heyday of 2021 and experts are still unsure what 2024 will hold. J.P. Morgan reported $2.5 billion raised from 12 completed biopharma IPOs for the year on Nasdaq and NYSE. Nine out of the 12 companies had clinical programs when they took the leap to the public markets. As of December 13, five of the companies were trading above their IPO price.

As for M&A, December saw a rush of Big Pharmas snapping up companies around Christmas. J.P. Morgan tallied the fourth quarter at $37.6 billion and $128.8 billion across 112 total acquisitions for all of 2023.

AbbVie was the top buyer of the quarter with the two largest acquisitions thanks to the $10 billion outlay for ImmunoGen and $8.7 billion buy of Cerevel Therapeutics.

All of this adds up to 270 total deals in the fourth quarter total, which is lower than the third quarter which exceeded 300.

J.P. Morgan sees some big potential for smaller biopharmas looking for licensing partners, as Big Pharmas have been handing out larger upfront payments for the deals they really want.

Cancer was once again the most in-demand therapeutic areas, reaching a new height of $86.1 billion in 2023. Followed by $21.1 billion for neurological disorders.

For More Articles on Real Time Conference Coverage in this Open Access Scientific Journal see:

Part One: The Process of Real Time Coverage using Social Media

Part Two: List of BioTech Conferences 2013 to Present

https://worldmedicalinnovation.org/

https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2022/05/01/2022-world-medical-innovation-forum-gene-cell-therapy-may-2-4-2022-boston-in-person/

 

https://event.technologyreview.com/emtech-digital-2022/agenda-overview

 

Read Full Post »

The Continued Impact and Possibilities of AI in Medical and Pharmaceutical Industry Practices

Reporter: Adam P. Tubman, MSc Biotechnology, Research Associate 3, Computer Graphics and AI in Drug Discovery

 

Researchers have been able to discover many ways to incorporate AI into the practices of healthcare, both in terms of medical healthcare and also in pharmaceutical drug development. For example, given the situation where a doctor provides an inaccurate diagnosis to a patient because the doctor had an incomplete or inaccurate medical record/history, AI presents a solution that has the potential to rapidly and correctly account for human error and predict the correct diagnosis based on the patterns identified in other patient’s medical history to disease diagnosis indication. In the pharmaceutical industry, companies are changing and expanding approaches to drug discovery and development given the possibilities that AI can offer. One company, Reverie Labs, located in Cambridge, MA, is a pharmaceutical company utilizing AI for application of machine learning and computational chemistry to discover new possible compounds to be used in the development of cancer treatments.

Today, AI uses have had many other applications in medicine including managing healthcare data and performing robotic surgery, both of which transform the in-person patient and doctor experience. AI has even been used to change in-person cancer patient experiences. For example, Freenome, a company in San Francisco, CA uses AI in initial screenings, blood tests and diagnostic tests when a patient is being initially tested for cancer. The hope is that this technology will aide in speeding up cancer diagnoses and lead to new treatment developments.

The future will continue to bring many possibilities of AI, provided an acceptable level of accuracy is still maintained by AI technologies and that the technology remains beneficial. If research continues to focus on diagnosing diseases at a faster rate given the potential human errors in having an inaccurate or incomplete medical record upon diagnosis, AI could provide an improved experience for patients given the quicker diagnosis and treatment combined with less time spent either treating the wrong underlying condition or not knowing what condition to treat when accounting for an incomplete medical record. If this technology is proven to be successful not just in theory, but in practice, technology would then be available and could be beneficially applied to all diagnoses and treatment plans, across the world.

However, the reality regarding AI development is that its evolution depends on how much human effort is involved in its development. Therefore, the world won’t know or see the full benefits of AI until it is developed and actively applied. Similarly, the impact that AI will have in medical and pharmaceutical practices won’t be known until scientists fully develop and apply the technologies. Many possibilities, including a possible drastic lowering of the cost for pharmaceutical drugs across the board once drugs are much more readily discovered and produced, may carry a profound benefit to patients who currently struggle to afford their own treatment plans. Additionally, unforeseen advances in the medicinal and pharmaceutical fields because of AI development will lead to unforeseen effects on the global economy and many other life changing variables for the entire world.

For more information on this topic, please check out the article below.

SOURCE

Daley, S. (2018). Artificial Intelligence in healthcare: 39 examples Improving the Future of Medicine. Built In. https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/artificial-intelligence-healthcare

Read Full Post »

Eight Subcellular Pathologies driving Chronic Metabolic Diseases – Methods for Mapping Bioelectronic Adjustable Measurements as potential new Therapeutics: Impact on Pharmaceuticals in Use

Eight Subcellular Pathologies driving Chronic Metabolic Diseases – Methods for Mapping Bioelectronic Adjustable Measurements as potential new Therapeutics: Impact on Pharmaceuticals in Use

Curators:

 

THE VOICE of Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

In this curation we wish to present two breaking through goals:

Goal 1:

Exposition of a new direction of research leading to a more comprehensive understanding of Metabolic Dysfunctional Diseases that are implicated in effecting the emergence of the two leading causes of human mortality in the World in 2023: (a) Cardiovascular Diseases, and (b) Cancer

Goal 2:

Development of Methods for Mapping Bioelectronic Adjustable Measurements as potential new Therapeutics for these eight subcellular causes of chronic metabolic diseases. It is anticipated that it will have a potential impact on the future of Pharmaceuticals to be used, a change from the present time current treatment protocols for Metabolic Dysfunctional Diseases.

According to Dr. Robert Lustig, M.D, an American pediatric endocrinologist. He is Professor emeritus of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, where he specialized in neuroendocrinology and childhood obesity, there are eight subcellular pathologies that drive chronic metabolic diseases.

These eight subcellular pathologies can’t be measured at present time.

In this curation we will attempt to explore methods of measurement for each of these eight pathologies by harnessing the promise of the emerging field known as Bioelectronics.

Unmeasurable eight subcellular pathologies that drive chronic metabolic diseases

  1. Glycation
  2. Oxidative Stress
  3. Mitochondrial dysfunction [beta-oxidation Ac CoA malonyl fatty acid]
  4. Insulin resistance/sensitive [more important than BMI], known as a driver to cancer development
  5. Membrane instability
  6. Inflammation in the gut [mucin layer and tight junctions]
  7. Epigenetics/Methylation
  8. Autophagy [AMPKbeta1 improvement in health span]

Diseases that are not Diseases: no drugs for them, only diet modification will help

Image source

Robert Lustig, M.D. on the Subcellular Processes That Belie Chronic Disease

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee_uoxuQo0I

 

Exercise will not undo Unhealthy Diet

Image source

Robert Lustig, M.D. on the Subcellular Processes That Belie Chronic Disease

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee_uoxuQo0I

 

These eight Subcellular Pathologies driving Chronic Metabolic Diseases are becoming our focus for exploration of the promise of Bioelectronics for two pursuits:

  1. Will Bioelectronics be deemed helpful in measurement of each of the eight pathological processes that underlie and that drive the chronic metabolic syndrome(s) and disease(s)?
  2. IF we will be able to suggest new measurements to currently unmeasurable health harming processes THEN we will attempt to conceptualize new therapeutic targets and new modalities for therapeutics delivery – WE ARE HOPEFUL

In the Bioelecronics domain we are inspired by the work of the following three research sources:

  1. Biological and Biomedical Electrical Engineering (B2E2) at Cornell University, School of Engineering https://www.engineering.cornell.edu/bio-electrical-engineering-0
  2. Bioelectronics Group at MIT https://bioelectronics.mit.edu/
  3. The work of Michael Levin @Tufts, The Levin Lab
Michael Levin is an American developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University, where he is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor. Levin is a director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University and Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. Wikipedia
Born: 1969 (age 54 years), Moscow, Russia
Education: Harvard University (1992–1996), Tufts University (1988–1992)
Affiliation: University of Cape Town
Research interests: Allergy, Immunology, Cross Cultural Communication
Awards: Cozzarelli prize (2020)
Doctoral advisor: Clifford Tabin
Most recent 20 Publications by Michael Levin, PhD
SOURCE
SCHOLARLY ARTICLE
The nonlinearity of regulation in biological networks
1 Dec 2023npj Systems Biology and Applications9(1)
Co-authorsManicka S, Johnson K, Levin M
SCHOLARLY ARTICLE
Toward an ethics of autopoietic technology: Stress, care, and intelligence
1 Sep 2023BioSystems231
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THE VOICE of Dr. Justin D. Pearlman, MD, PhD, FACC

PENDING

THE VOICE of  Stephen J. Williams, PhD

Ten TakeAway Points of Dr. Lustig’s talk on role of diet on the incidence of Type II Diabetes

 

  1. 25% of US children have fatty liver
  2. Type II diabetes can be manifested from fatty live with 151 million  people worldwide affected moving up to 568 million in 7 years
  3. A common myth is diabetes due to overweight condition driving the metabolic disease
  4. There is a trend of ‘lean’ diabetes or diabetes in lean people, therefore body mass index not a reliable biomarker for risk for diabetes
  5. Thirty percent of ‘obese’ people just have high subcutaneous fat.  the visceral fat is more problematic
  6. there are people who are ‘fat’ but insulin sensitive while have growth hormone receptor defects.  Points to other issues related to metabolic state other than insulin and potentially the insulin like growth factors
  7. At any BMI some patients are insulin sensitive while some resistant
  8. Visceral fat accumulation may be more due to chronic stress condition
  9. Fructose can decrease liver mitochondrial function
  10. A methionine and choline deficient diet can lead to rapid NASH development

 

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) Used to Successfully Determine Most Likely Repurposed Antibiotic Against Deadly Superbug Acinetobacter baumanni

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

The World Health Organization has identified 3 superbugs, or infective micororganisms displaying resistance to common antibiotics and multidrug resistance, as threats to humanity:

Three bacteria were listed as critical:

  • Acinetobacter baumannii bacteria that are resistant to important antibiotics called carbapenems. Acinetobacter baumannii are highly-drug resistant bacteria that can cause a range of infections for hospitalized patients, including pneumonia, wound, or blood infections.
  • Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which are resistant to carbapenems. Pseudomonas aeruginosa can cause skin rashes and ear infectious in healthy people but also severe blood infections and pneumonia when contracted by sick people in the hospital.
  • Enterobacteriaceae — a family of bacteria that live in the human gut — that are resistant to both carbepenems and another class of antibiotics, cephalosporins.

 

It has been designated critical need for development of  antibiotics to these pathogens.  Now researchers at Mcmaster University and others in the US had used artificial intelligence (AI) to screen libraries of over 7,000 chemicals to find a drug that could be repurposed to kill off the pathogen.

Liu et. Al. (1) published their results of an AI screen to narrow down potential chemicals that could work against Acinetobacter baumanii in Nature Chemical Biology recently.

Abstract

Acinetobacter baumannii is a nosocomial Gram-negative pathogen that often displays multidrug resistance. Discovering new antibiotics against A. baumannii has proven challenging through conventional screening approaches. Fortunately, machine learning methods allow for the rapid exploration of chemical space, increasing the probability of discovering new antibacterial molecules. Here we screened ~7,500 molecules for those that inhibited the growth of A. baumannii in vitro. We trained a neural network with this growth inhibition dataset and performed in silico predictions for structurally new molecules with activity against A. baumannii. Through this approach, we discovered abaucin, an antibacterial compound with narrow-spectrum activity against A. baumannii. Further investigations revealed that abaucin perturbs lipoprotein trafficking through a mechanism involving LolE. Moreover, abaucin could control an A. baumannii infection in a mouse wound model. This work highlights the utility of machine learning in antibiotic discovery and describes a promising lead with targeted activity against a challenging Gram-negative pathogen.

Schematic workflow for incorporation of AI for antibiotic drug discovery for A. baumannii from 1. Liu, G., Catacutan, D.B., Rathod, K. et al. Deep learning-guided discovery of an antibiotic targeting Acinetobacter baumannii. Nat Chem Biol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-023-01349-8

Figure source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41589-023-01349-8

Article Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41589-023-01349-8

  1. Liu, G., Catacutan, D.B., Rathod, K. et al.Deep learning-guided discovery of an antibiotic targeting Acinetobacter baumanniiNat Chem Biol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-023-01349-8

 

 

For reference to WHO and lists of most pathogenic superbugs see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/who-releases-list-of-worlds-most-dangerous-superbugs/

The finding was first reported by the BBC.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-65709834

By James Gallagher

Health and science correspondent

Scientists have used artificial intelligence (AI) to discover a new antibiotic that can kill a deadly species of superbug.

The AI helped narrow down thousands of potential chemicals to a handful that could be tested in the laboratory.

The result was a potent, experimental antibiotic called abaucin, which will need further tests before being used.

The researchers in Canada and the US say AI has the power to massively accelerate the discovery of new drugs.

It is the latest example of how the tools of artificial intelligence can be a revolutionary force in science and medicine.

Stopping the superbugs

Antibiotics kill bacteria. However, there has been a lack of new drugs for decades and bacteria are becoming harder to treat, as they evolve resistance to the ones we have.

More than a million people a year are estimated to die from infections that resist treatment with antibiotics.The researchers focused on one of the most problematic species of bacteria – Acinetobacter baumannii, which can infect wounds and cause pneumonia.

You may not have heard of it, but it is one of the three superbugs the World Health Organization has identified as a “critical” threat.

It is often able to shrug off multiple antibiotics and is a problem in hospitals and care homes, where it can survive on surfaces and medical equipment.

Dr Jonathan Stokes, from McMaster University, describes the bug as “public enemy number one” as it’s “really common” to find cases where it is “resistant to nearly every antibiotic”.

 

Artificial intelligence

To find a new antibiotic, the researchers first had to train the AI. They took thousands of drugs where the precise chemical structure was known, and manually tested them on Acinetobacter baumannii to see which could slow it down or kill it.

This information was fed into the AI so it could learn the chemical features of drugs that could attack the problematic bacterium.

The AI was then unleashed on a list of 6,680 compounds whose effectiveness was unknown. The results – published in Nature Chemical Biology – showed it took the AI an hour and a half to produce a shortlist.

The researchers tested 240 in the laboratory, and found nine potential antibiotics. One of them was the incredibly potent antibiotic abaucin.

Laboratory experiments showed it could treat infected wounds in mice and was able to kill A. baumannii samples from patients.

However, Dr Stokes told me: “This is when the work starts.”

The next step is to perfect the drug in the laboratory and then perform clinical trials. He expects the first AI antibiotics could take until 2030 until they are available to be prescribed.

Curiously, this experimental antibiotic had no effect on other species of bacteria, and works only on A. baumannii.

Many antibiotics kill bacteria indiscriminately. The researchers believe the precision of abaucin will make it harder for drug-resistance to emerge, and could lead to fewer side-effects.

 

In principle, the AI could screen tens of millions of potential compounds – something that would be impractical to do manually.

“AI enhances the rate, and in a perfect world decreases the cost, with which we can discover these new classes of antibiotic that we desperately need,” Dr Stokes told me.

The researchers tested the principles of AI-aided antibiotic discovery in E. coli in 2020, but have now used that knowledge to focus on the big nasties. They plan to look at Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa next.

“This finding further supports the premise that AI can significantly accelerate and expand our search for novel antibiotics,” said Prof James Collins, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He added: “I’m excited that this work shows that we can use AI to help combat problematic pathogens such as A. baumannii.”

Prof Dame Sally Davies, the former chief medical officer for England and government envoy on anti-microbial resistance, told Radio 4’s The World Tonight: “We’re onto a winner.”

She said the idea of using AI was “a big game-changer, I’m thrilled to see the work he (Dr Stokes) is doing, it will save lives”.

Other related articles and books published in this Online Scientific Journal include the following:

Series D: e-Books on BioMedicine – Metabolomics, Immunology, Infectious Diseases, Reproductive Genomic Endocrinology

(3 book series: Volume 1, 2&3, 4)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08VVWTNR4?ref_=dbs_p_pwh_rwt_anx_b_lnk&storeType=ebooks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • The Immune System, Stress Signaling, Infectious Diseases and Therapeutic Implications:

 

  • Series D, VOLUME 2

Infectious Diseases and Therapeutics

and

  • Series D, VOLUME 3

The Immune System and Therapeutics

(Series D: BioMedicine & Immunology) Kindle Edition.

On Amazon.com since September 4, 2017

(English Edition) Kindle Edition – as one Book

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075CXHY1B $115

 

Bacterial multidrug resistance problem solved by a broad-spectrum synthetic antibiotic

The Journey of Antibiotic Discovery

FDA cleared Clever Culture Systems’ artificial intelligence tech for automated imaging, analysis and interpretation of microbiology culture plates speeding up Diagnostics

Artificial Intelligence: Genomics & Cancer

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Reporter and Curator: Dr. Sudipta Saha, Ph.D.

The female reproductive lifespan is regulated by the menstrual cycle. Defined as the interval between the menarche and menopause, it is approximately 35 years in length on average. Based on current average human life expectancy figures, and excluding fertility issues, this means that the female body can bear children for almost half of its lifetime. Thus, within this time span many individuals may consider contraception at some point in their reproductive life. A wide variety of contraceptive methods are now available, which are broadly classified into hormonal and non-hormonal approaches. A normal menstrual cycle is controlled by a delicate interplay of hormones, including estrogen, progesterone, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH), among others. These molecules are produced by the various glands in the body that make up the endocrine system.

Hormonal contraceptives – including the contraceptive pill, some intrauterine devices (IUDs) and hormonal implants – utilize exogenous (or synthetic) hormones to block or suppress ovulation, the phase of the menstrual cycle where an egg is released into the uterus. Beyond their use as methods to prevent pregnancy, hormonal contraceptives are also being increasingly used to suppress ovulation as a method for treating premenstrual syndromes. Hormonal contraceptives composed of exogenous estrogen and/or progesterone are commonly administered artificial means of birth control. Despite many benefits, adverse side effects associated with high doses such as thrombosis and myocardial infarction, cause hesitation to usage.

Scientists at the University of the Philippines and Roskilde University are exploring methods to optimize the dosage of exogenous hormones in such contraceptives. Their overall aim is the creation of patient-specific minimizing dosing schemes, to prevent adverse side effects that can be associated with hormonal contraceptive use and empower individuals in their contraceptive journey. Their research data showed evidence that the doses of exogenous hormones in certain contraceptive methods could be reduced, while still ensuring ovulation is suppressed. Reducing the total exogenous hormone dose by 92% in estrogen-only contraceptives, or the total dose by 43% in progesterone-only contraceptives, prevented ovulation according to the model. In contraceptives combining estrogen and progesterone, the doses could be reduced further.

References:

https://www.technologynetworks.com/drug-discovery/news/hormone-doses-in-contraceptives-could-be-reduced-by-as-much-as-92-372088?utm_campaign=NEWSLETTER_TN_Breaking%20Science%20News

https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010073

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/birth-control-with-up-to-92-lower-hormone-doses-could-still-be-effective

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441576/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953621005797

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