Developing Drug Targeting B Cells in Autoimmune Disease of the Kidney IgA Nephropathy with Dr. Marshall Fordyce Vera Therapeutics
Release Date: 05/15/2024
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Empowered Patient Podcast
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Using Technology to Address Preventable Medical Harm with Joe Kiani Patient Safety Movement Foundation
Empowered Patient Podcast
Joe Kiani is Executive Chairman at Willow Laboratories and Founder of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation. He makes the point that the vast majority of medical harm is avoidable through the implementation of evidence-based healthcare best practices. Technology, particularly AI and remote monitoring of data from medical devices, is crucial for creating predictive models that can alert clinicians to problems and identify root causes of medical errors. The goal is to unite all healthcare stakeholders to work collaboratively toward zero preventable deaths. Joe explains, "In the US,...
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Empowered Patient Podcast
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info_outline
Digitizing Hospital Workflows Boosts Efficiency and Patient Outcomes with Sam Yeruva PyCube
Empowered Patient Podcast
Sam Yeruva is Founder and CEO of PyCube, a company that provides software solutions to US hospitals to digitize workflows and improve operational efficiency. He points out that many hospital processes still rely on paper, which hinders the collection of data necessary for operational intelligence and forecasting. The key to success is breaking down data silos across departments to better track assets, samples, and pharmaceuticals, improving patient care, reducing clinician burnout, and driving cost savings. Sam explains, "PyCube is a software solutions company serving US health...
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Micro-Wearable Delivers Continuous Hydration Monitoring and Biomarker Insights with Professor Mark Kendall WearOptimo
Empowered Patient Podcast
Professor Mark Kendall, Founder and CEO of WearOptimo, is a pioneer in micro-wearable technology and highlights the limitations of current wearables that capture only basic signals. The WearOptimo platform uses a skin patch with painless microelectrodes to measure a range of biomarkers in the interstitial fluid just beneath the skin surface. The company's first product is a continuous hydration monitor designed to address the widespread and under-recognized health problems caused by dehydration due to lifestyle, disease, and working conditions. Mark explains, "We are all familiar...
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Patient-Centric Drug Development for Ovarian Cancer Targets Tumor Survival Pathway with Dr. Stella Vnook Kaida Biopharma
Empowered Patient Podcast
Dr. Stella Vnook, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of Kaida Biopharma, highlights the advantages for an early-stage biotech company to take a patient-centric perspective in drug development. She defines patient-centricity as focusing on whether a drug meaningfully improves a patient's life, which should influence decisions about trial design, endpoints, and side effects from the earliest stages. Kaida's work on a new treatment for ovarian cancer is designed to target tumor survival mechanisms and overcome treatment resistance, and has from the beginning taken into consideration the tolerability...
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Empowered Patient Podcast
Dr. Deb Dittberner, Chief Clinical Officer and Director of Population Health at Herself Health, focuses on providing value-based care for women aged 50 and older through a model that prioritizes cognition, bone health, behavioral health, and cardiac health. Conventional primary care for older women often overlooks the complexities of aging, which Herself Health addresses through longer visits, proactive screening, and patient education. Technology is being successfully integrated into the environment to provide virtual visits, support medication adherence, and improve access to care. ...
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Redefining Primary Care for Older Women with Dr. Deb Dittberner Herself Health
Empowered Patient Podcast
Dr. Deb Dittberner, Chief Clinical Officer and Director of Population Health at Herself Health, focuses on providing value-based care for women aged 50 and older through a model that prioritizes cognition, bone health, behavioral health, and cardiac health. Conventional primary care for older women often overlooks the complexities of aging, which Herself Health addresses through longer visits, proactive screening, and patient education. Technology is being successfully integrated into the environment to provide virtual visits, support medication adherence, and improve access to care. ...
info_outlineDr. Marshall Fordyce, CEO and Founder of Vera Therapeutics, discusses the company's patient-centric approach to developing new medicines for autoimmune diseases. Vera is currently in Phase 3 with a molecule called Atacicept, which targets B cells in autoimmune diseases. They focus on IgA nephropathy, a rare kidney disease, and the third most common cause of kidney failure. A key concern is that declining kidney function is often misdiagnosed and not screened for because the early warning signs are so subtle.
Marshall explains, "Let me give you an example of our lead indication. So, our molecule in development is called atacicept. It targets the immune system in the specific area of B cells, and B cells are the factories of our antibodies, which we need to fight infection over our lifetime. But in patients with autoimmune disease, these B cells are overstimulated, they're overactive, and there are only a few medicines that target B cells with an appropriate balance of safety and efficacy. We had an insight that the science told us that by inhibiting two key factors in the body, BAFF and APRIL, we could normalize that overactivity of B cells and have better outcomes."
"Now traditional drug development may be long and expensive. We were very strategic in picking IgA nephropathy. This is an area that has had very little drug development over the last decade. A few small companies started to become interested in this area, and thankfully, because of patient advocacy, the FDA allowed a surrogate endpoint in Phase 3 trials, which made it more efficient to bring this molecule forward. So, there are now two drugs on the market for the first time in the last three or four years, for two new drugs in IgA nephropathy. They don't target B cells, which is really what's driving this disease. They work downstream, or they're nonspecific."
"What Vera did differently is that we thought that we could actually demonstrate that kidney function, which in these young patients is declining at an alarming rate, if we could demonstrate that kidney function doesn't decline, that would be meaningful. It would be a significant leap. We don't see that happen in "traditional" drug development often, in my view. So, I think what's different here is that we're picking an area where we think we can intervene and, in early-stage development, show a meaningful improvement in outcomes for patients."
#VeraTherapeutics #KidneyDisease #RareDisease #BCells #Immunotherapy #AutoimmuneDiseases #IgANephropathy
