Treating Autoimmune-Driven Dry Eye Disease with Immune Modulator with Elizabeth Jeffords Iolyx TRANSCRIPT
Release Date: 09/12/2025
How Laboratory Robots Are Transforming Hydrogel Testing with Sinan Gölhan GelTech TRANSCRIPT
Empowered Patient Podcast
Sinan Gölhan, Founder and CEO of GelTech, describes the characteristics and applications for hydrogels, which are bio-friendly, super-absorbent materials similar to natural tissue. In cancer treatments, hydrogels offer a way to deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to a tumor, which can significantly increase the accuracy and efficacy of the drug. GelTech has developed a robotic instrument to streamline the time-consuming testing process for new hydrogel treatments, automating repetitive actions, reducing inconsistencies, and enabling 24/7 testing capabilities. Sinan explains, "You could think...
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How Laboratory Robots Are Transforming Hydrogel Testing with Sinan Gölhan GelTech
Empowered Patient Podcast
Sinan Gölhan, Founder and CEO of GelTech, describes the characteristics and applications for hydrogels, which are bio-friendly, super-absorbent materials similar to natural tissue. In cancer treatments, hydrogels offer a way to deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to a tumor, which can significantly increase the accuracy and efficacy of the drug. GelTech has developed a robotic instrument to streamline the time-consuming testing process for new hydrogel treatments, automating repetitive actions, reducing inconsistencies, and enabling 24/7 testing capabilities. Sinan explains, "You could think...
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Treating Autoimmune-Driven Dry Eye Disease with Immune Modulator with Elizabeth Jeffords Iolyx TRANSCRIPT
Empowered Patient Podcast
Elizabeth Jeffords, CEO and President of Iolyx Therapeutics, discusses dry eye disease and its connection to autoimmune conditions. The company's novel therapeutic topical immune modulator is designed to treat the root inflammation in the eye, which systemic drugs often fail to reach due to the blood-retina barrier. Patients with dry eye disease often have multiple comorbidities and are excluded from clinical trials, making this research even more significant in finding treatments for a growing population. Elizabeth explains, "Some people have physical dry eye, i.e., they have a dysfunction...
info_outline
Treating Autoimmune-Driven Dry Eye Disease with Immune Modulator with Elizabeth Jeffords Iolyx
Empowered Patient Podcast
Elizabeth Jeffords, CEO and President of Iolyx Therapeutics, discusses dry eye disease and its connection to autoimmune conditions. The company's novel therapeutic topical immune modulator is designed to treat the root inflammation in the eye, which systemic drugs often fail to reach due to the blood-retina barrier. Patients with dry eye disease often have multiple comorbidities and are excluded from clinical trials, making this research even more significant in finding treatments for a growing population. Elizabeth explains, "Some people have physical dry eye, i.e., they have a dysfunction...
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Using AI in Drug Development to Protect Brain Enzyme Linked to Parkinson’s Disease Progression with Gene Mack Gain Therapeutics TRANSCRIPT
Empowered Patient Podcast
Gene Mack, CEO and President of Gain Therapeutics, is combining AI-powered drug discovery with the development of allosteric modulators, drugs that bind to unique sites on proteins. The company's AI platform, Magellan, is crucial for accelerating drug discovery by reducing the time for computational screening of potential drug compounds. Their lead compound is showing promising results as a potential disease-modifying therapy for Parkinson's disease, aiming to halt the progression of the disease rather than just treating symptoms. Gene explains, "So allosteric modulators of protein,...
info_outline
Using AI in Drug Development to Protect Brain Enzyme Linked to Parkinson’s Disease Progression with Gene Mack Gain Therapeutics
Empowered Patient Podcast
Gene Mack, CEO and President of Gain Therapeutics, is combining AI-powered drug discovery with the development of allosteric modulators, drugs that bind to unique sites on proteins. The company's AI platform, Magellan, is crucial for accelerating drug discovery by reducing the time for computational screening of potential drug compounds. Their lead compound is showing promising results as a potential disease-modifying therapy for Parkinson's disease, aiming to halt the progression of the disease rather than just treating symptoms. Gene explains, "So allosteric modulators of protein,...
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Advancement in Abuse-Deterrent Opioids with Paul Howe Protega Pharmaceuticals TRANSCRIPT
Empowered Patient Podcast
Paul Howe, COO of Protega Pharmaceuticals, is focused on how abuse-deterrent technology can address the opioid crisis and the need for mandates for insurance coverage of safer abuse-deterrent formulations. The SentryBond technology was specifically designed for immediate-release opioids to make it difficult to manipulate pills for abuse via crushing, inhaling, or injecting. Protega partnered with software company Opus to offer a program that helps educate chronic pain patients, manage their treatment, and provides physicians with risk stratification data to improve care and reduce the...
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Advancement in Abuse-Deterrent Opioids with Paul Howe Protega Pharmaceuticals
Empowered Patient Podcast
Paul Howe, COO of Protega Pharmaceuticals, is focused on how abuse-deterrent technology can address the opioid crisis and the need for mandates for insurance coverage of safer abuse-deterrent formulations. The SentryBond technology was specifically designed for immediate-release opioids to make it difficult to manipulate pills for abuse via crushing, inhaling, or injecting. Protega partnered with software company Opus to offer a program that helps educate chronic pain patients, manage their treatment, and provides physicians with risk stratification data to improve care and reduce the...
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Leveraging Non-Dilutive Funding for Ultra-Rare Disease Development with Dr. George Magrath Opus Genetics TRANSCRIPT
Empowered Patient Podcast
Dr. George Magrath, CEO of Opus Genetics, discusses the company's experience in obtaining non-dilutive funding for its ultra-rare inherited retinal disease program. He highlights the challenges and advantages of this funding source, as well as the importance of establishing relationships with patient advocacy groups and foundations to mitigate risk and increase their attractiveness to traditional investors. The drive for non-dilutive funding for ultra-rare diseases is expected to become increasingly important in helping to get drugs to clinical trials. George explains, "Opus Genetics is a...
info_outline
Leveraging Non-Dilutive Funding for Ultra-Rare Disease Development with Dr. George Magrath Opus Genetics
Empowered Patient Podcast
Dr. George Magrath, CEO of Opus Genetics, discusses the company's experience in obtaining non-dilutive funding for its ultra-rare inherited retinal disease program. He highlights the challenges and advantages of this funding source, as well as the importance of establishing relationships with patient advocacy groups and foundations to mitigate risk and increase their attractiveness to traditional investors. The drive for non-dilutive funding for ultra-rare diseases is expected to become increasingly important in helping to get drugs to clinical trials. George explains, "Opus Genetics is a...
info_outlineElizabeth Jeffords, CEO and President of Iolyx Therapeutics, discusses dry eye disease and its connection to autoimmune conditions. The company's novel therapeutic topical immune modulator is designed to treat the root inflammation in the eye, which systemic drugs often fail to reach due to the blood-retina barrier. Patients with dry eye disease often have multiple comorbidities and are excluded from clinical trials, making this research even more significant in finding treatments for a growing population.
Elizabeth explains, "Some people have physical dry eye, i.e., they have a dysfunction in their meibomian glands, and they can't make enough tears or those tears aren't the right composition. But more than half of the patients with dry eye have an underlying autoimmune disease. And they might know that, and they might not. So, patients with either Sjogren's disease or any of the thyroid conditions, patients with rheumatoid arthritis, MS, connective tissue dysfunction, most of those patients have some ocular comorbidities, and specifically, dry eye is probably one of the biggest ones."
"Sometimes we treat the body, and we can treat autoimmune diseases successfully, but you don't really get most drugs into the eye. And so those alarm bells are still going off in the eye. And unfortunately, these patients with autoimmune disease tend to have more severe disease. They respond differently to the drugs that are out there today and probably most troublesome to us, and why Iolyx is really targeted these patients is that they get excluded from most of trials because they're just more difficult to treat, but they're also more difficult to treat because they have systemic medications that they're on, and most of those drugs get excluded."
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