Podcasts about humira

From compromised vaccines to failed clinical trials, the stakes of biopharma cold chain failures are dangerously high. Each year, the industry loses $35 billion due to temperature excursions and environmental deviations in transit. But the cost to patient safety? Incalculable.In this episode, we examine the hidden weak points in cold chain logistics and why manual processes and siloed systems are no longer acceptable. Drawing from The cold truth: Why biopharma needs integrated cold chain monitoring tech, we uncover how IoT devices, smart packaging, and ERP-integrated platforms are transforming temperature-sensitive logistics—from warehouse to drone-based last-mile delivery.What You'll Learn in This Episode:1. The Hidden Cost of Cold Chain Failures$35B in annual losses from temperature excursions and environmental mishandling20% of pharma products are damaged by temperature issues aloneNearly half of surveyed companies experience multiple excursions yearly2. Why ‘Almost Perfect' Isn't Good EnoughMany advanced therapies use a stability budget—once it's gone, efficacy is lostSome products (e.g., Humira, Enbrel) must avoid both overheating and freezingVibration and humidity sensitivity add even more complexity3. The Limits of Manual & Legacy SystemsFragmented cold chains and outdated spreadsheets lack end-to-end visibilitySome companies still do not consistently use basic temperature monitoringRegulatory compliance requires verifiable, real-time control4. Integrated Tech as the New StandardSmart tags, RFID, and IoT devices feed data into centralized ERP systemsReal-time monitoring of temperature, vibration, humidity, and TORPredictive alerts and proactive interventions reduce spoilage risk5. The Future of Cold Chain LogisticsAdoption of TOR-based warehouse picking strategiesDeployment of agentic AI for self-optimizing logisticsProof-of-concept drone delivery of ultra-cold products (e.g., -70°C) by MerckShift toward reusable thermal containers and TCO-driven decision-makingKey Takeaways:Cold chain integrity is critical for both product viability and patient safetyIntegrated monitoring platforms provide provable control—essential for complianceCompanies adopting these solutions have cut losses by up to 20%The rise of agentic AI and real-time monitoring marks a new era in biopharma logisticsGlobal regulations must evolve to keep pace with tech and therapeutic complexitySubscribe to our podcast for expert insights on supply chain innovation, life sciences logistics, and pharmaceutical compliance. Visit The Future of Commerce for the latest on how tech is transforming healthcare delivery. Share this episode with supply chain leaders, pharma execs, and regulatory professionals.

Preena: Welcome to the Weinberg in the World Podcast, where we bring stories of interdisciplinary thinking in today's complex world. My name is Preena Shroff and I'm your student host of this special Weinberg in the World episode. I'm a third year student majoring in neuroscience and global health studies with a minor in data center. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Natasha Phillips, who graduated from Weinberg College in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology and biology. Natasha currently serves as chief marketing officer for GE Healthcare, leading teams that help healthcare providers design treatment plans for their patients. Natasha, thank you so much for being here with us today. Natasha: Thanks for having me, Preena. It's a pleasure. Preena: We are so excited to learn about your work in healthcare marketing, but would love to start out with how your career path was shaped by your time at Northwestern. Maybe you can tell us more about your undergraduate experience, what were some impactful classes, extracurriculars, or mentorships opportunities that you had which impacted your post-graduate career? Natasha: Yeah. You're making me think a little bit, because I got to go back in time. As an undergraduate, I was super lucky, having both a biology and a sociology major, it gave me the ability to see a very wide range of classes. I wasn't 100% sure actually what I wanted to do. I knew I was somewhat interested in the sciences. I didn't actually know I would be that interested in the social sciences, but I took a couple of classes. One in particular was the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity with Charlie Moskos, which actually made me decide to ... That was the reason I became a sociology major. I just got super lucky, I loved that class. It's funny, if I ever had a second life, I always say I would have loved to have gone back and been a sociology professor. But I didn't take that path, I went more with the actual biology side of things. I was weighing, do I want to do research? I actually was really interested in molecular biology, primarily because in the late '90s, which is a very long time ago to our students who are listening, but for me that was a time very formative because they were sequencing the human genome. There was a lot of promise in the space, not only of biology, but more specifically molecular biology and how it is linked to genetics and genomics as we think about the impact on healthcare. That really interested me to the point where I really was considering actually getting my PhD in molecular biology. Some of my favorite classes were the ones in which I had exposure to research, because I got to see the importance of just the impact that research can have. And the ability to be able to find a practical application, even if it's on a very specific question, to really contribute to the body of knowledge. Ultimately ended up being unsure what I wanted to do right after undergrad, so I went into healthcare consulting in which I wanted to be able to figure out, do I want to go towards the more business side of healthcare and thinking about commercializing healthcare and science from the industry side of things? Or to the academic side and actually get my PhD, and think about contributing to science and healthcare in that realm. I did have exposure, both in consulting as well as in research. I started in a research program at the University of Chicago in molecular biology after doing consulting so I could see both sides. And ultimately, actually, that was when I made the decision to focus much more so on the business side of it and to get my MBA, and to move into healthcare marketing. That led me into the career in which I've had today, in which I've been very lucky to have over 15 years working at very large multinational healthcare companies, primarily in sales and marketing roles, bringing innovation in healthcare to people all over the globe. Preena: Absolutely. Wow, yeah. I think your path is actually not only a common path that students seek out, but also something that students might end up finding themselves in, even if they do experience a career switch in their life. That's really interesting to hear about. I have another question for you, more specifically job-oriented. Healthcare is constantly evolving, so maybe you can tell us a little bit about how your marketing approach has changed since you began your career? Natasha: Yeah. I love that question, Preena, because what really is happening is healthcare is evolving and the function of marketing is evolving constantly. I am really lucky that, both in the subject matter that I basically have decided to focus in, which is healthcare and ultimately the innovation around healthcare, but also have a really cool and exciting function that continues to evolve. I was lucky enough during my ... Maybe I'll start with the functional part, I'll start with marketing first, and then I'll talk about healthcare. The basic function of marketing has changed significantly over the past 20 years as I've been a marketer, primarily with the advent of digital and social media. It continues now to evolve, as we think about personalized marketing and AI, and what that's going to do. I would say the main changes that I've seen over time has been from a very I would say structured, one size fits all, if you think about it like mass media type of marketing in which there was a time in which you had one singular message and one singular way of approaching individuals, and not a lot of channels to reach them. To now, moving to almost a fully personalized marketing experience, where you have the ability with technology today to be able to say, even if you have thousands of targets, how do you understand the fine differences. There's got to be some generalization amongst those targets, but there's also some fine differences in how people consume their information, care about interacting with your brand, and want to be able to either become loyal brand advocates or detractors. How do you understand what those insights are to create an ongoing personalized journey that evolves over time with the individual as their media consumption and interest in whatever product you're selling changes? That's been one of the coolest innovations to think about, as we think about the function. If I look at healthcare, I've been lucky enough to see innovation across a variety of different segments within healthcare. I'd seen the advent of biologics. If we think about innovation from a healthcare point of view, in basically the last 20 years or so, we've seen drugs like Humira, which started the biologic class and has now exploded into one of the largest categories or segments within healthcare. And the significant impact that that has had on millions of patients, and has changed diseases all the way from skin conditions to much more serious autoimmune type of conditions. I've been lucky enough to see innovation on the diagnostic side, in which I've seen the advent of brand new technologies, including things like multi-plexing. Of taking a single sample, and instead of wanting to get one answer, you can get anywhere from 25 to 30 answers of which virus of which disease somebody has. And the impact that that has had not only on just healthcare, but on infectious disease and vaccines in other parts. For me, what has actually kept me so motivated in healthcare for so long is it isn't just an idea. I get to be part of the teams, and it's a cross-functional team that includes everybody from scientists, research and developers, operations, medical affairs, clinical affairs, marketers, salespeople, finance people, and everybody, I'm sure I'm forgetting some functions. It is such a complex effort to bring innovation like this to market and sometimes can take 10 to 15 years, but when it happens you actually see significant change in healthcare. For me, that's the ability to think even 30, 40 years from now, some of the either diagnostics, devices, or drugs that I've helped to bring to market will really have an impact. Either because it continues to improve healthcare or it was the precursor of future innovation that's going to continue to come because we've paved the way for it, so it's really cool. Preena: Absolutely. That's really incredible. And the way you're able to work with people of many different fields and backgrounds, and then learn from them as well is a really incredible experience, and I hope defines a lot of students' careers in the future as well. Natasha: Yeah. I think just to add to that, the one thing to really keep in mind is I love the interdisciplinary approach that a really good college in arts and sciences like Weinberg does. Because for me, that kind of thinking, although I didn't understand it at the time because I was just a student and I had no clue what I was actually going to do, is something that to this day in my career I think back to and I leverage. It's helped to make me successful, especially in a very large matrix cross-functional organization. It's something that, as all of you who are students potentially listening to this and are thinking, "What might I do in the future?" Really leverage the opportunities that you have to do that kind of interdisciplinary type of work because it will make you much stronger in whatever field you decide to do. Preena: Yeah, absolutely. Going off of that, a bit in the other direction, but what is a common misconception about working in the healthcare marketing industry? Natasha: That is a great question. This is maybe a little controversial, but I'm going to say it. I think there is this perception of big, bad pharma and big, bad healthcare. I think it's something that is an understandable point of view and one which requires probably much more dialogue than what we can answer here. But I'll just leave people with this one thought. Which is if you think about most of the major innovations that have come to healthcare over the last 30 years, whether it's drugs to treat high blood pressure or hypertension, or innovations in diagnostics as I mentioned to be able to not just understand what's happening from blood count, but to be able to look at the molecular and cellular level to treat rare diseases and everything in the middle. Much of that innovation, while it is funded and founded in the basic research that happens at academic and other institutions, has really been driven by the industry. Whether it's the pharmaceutical industry, the med device industry, the diagnostic industry. That requires significant investment and significant time. It also requires a very high failure rate. In some cases, if you have 100 compounds or 100 ideas that you're bringing through, less than 1% of them will sometimes make it to market. There is a significant amount of investment that needs to happen. While there's always optimizations that could happen, I always implore people to think about the fact that the drug that your mother or father is taking today, or that your brother or sister is taking for asthma, didn't exist probably even 20 or 30 years ago because we didn't have the funding and innovation that was coming necessarily maybe from companies that has been pushing that forward. While there is a lot of discussion to be had about healthcare and the rights to healthcare, I think companies like mine, whether it's my current company or previous company, have played a very important role in really helping to improve overall health and healthcare as we think about the impact on people's lives. I just ask people to be open to the fact that there's always a variety of different vantage points and it's always a great healthy dialogue to have. Preena: Of course, yeah. From what you said, it sounds like it's a bit of a trade-off and it's really important to discover where you fit in within that sphere, and learn how to interpret your work and your path in that direction as well. Just realizing what impact you're making and picturing that longterm. Natasha: Yeah, exactly. Preena: Okay. Then, I was also going to ask you about the student perspective, thinking about students today. How would you recommend students cultivate a personal brand? A lot of times people say networking. How do students network authentically, both online and in-person so that they can find the right opportunities or even the right opportunities can find them? Natasha: Yeah, I think it's a really great question. I very much will reiterate the importance of networking because I think that's foundational and fundamental to everything that we do today. In fact, many of you who got into very competitive colleges probably had to figure that out as you were even thinking about how to get into the school that you're in today. That thought process needs to continue as you think about getting your first job, or maybe you're getting your next pre-professional school that you're focused on. I would take that networking to the next step to say I think some of the most effective networking has two really good components. I find this, because I have a lot of people who maybe reach out to me, either through my network or because they're looking for learning about marketing or healthcare, or other topics that maybe I've had some experience with. The first of those two things is really having a genuine brand, and one in which you really own and feel passionate about. The most interesting and coolest networking that I do, even with students today, are the ones in which people are very purposeful about what they are interested in, what they care about, what their brand is. It's probably hard to even think about me as a college student, what is my brand? But you have a brand. You may not know it yet, but you definitely have and can develop a brand. That brand should be whatever you feel truly passionate and genuinely interested in, because that will only I would say help you have much more successful networking and much more genuine connections with the people that you are trying to connect with. Even if that individual maybe doesn't understand or isn't that maybe close to the topic, you'd be shocked how just that genuine authenticity is going to help drive really stronger connections in networking that are going to help both you, as well as the network that you're creating, as you think about the fact that one day you're going to have a network and you're going to want to be able to pay it forward to students the way maybe people are helping you with your decisions and career today. The second one as you think about networking is a lot of times, networking and finding a good fit, whether it's a company or your next pre-professional program, or what you even want to do, is based on having a shared purpose with whoever you're networking with or whatever that institution is. I find the people who come and are most prepared for interviews, in addition to feeling very genuine and knowing what their brand is, are the people who are very clear on what my purpose, either as an institution is, or whatever group I'm part of. They understand that and it is very much akin to who they are, what they're looking for, what makes them passionate. That sense of shared purpose in networking I think is another way in which you can more successfully think about how do you take your decisions or whatever you're going to do next in your career path and be more successful in terms of what you want to do. Then the last thing I would say is don't feel super ... I know everybody's pressured to feel like they know exactly what they want to do and I understand that. I'm sure many of the people who are listening to this are very high performing, have always been very successful in life, have known exactly what they want to do. But there's a lot of benefit to maybe giving yourself the luxury of knowing you have a very long marathon ahead of you, as you think about the decision making in your career choices that you're going to make. If there's ever a time to be open to it, it's probably earlier in your career when you're maybe more willing to not only take some risks, but also be true to what you actually think will be interesting to you over a longterm career. Don't be afraid if it's not going to be a straight line. It might be a really curvy, cool path. At the time, it might feel a little discouraging, but don't be discouraged. Because I would argue, if I look back, some of my coolest decisions were the ones in which it wasn't this straight line, very clear path of what I wanted to do. But rather, I was either more open because of external circumstances or internal motivation to being a little bit more flexible and not so purposeful, and everything must be this in this timeframe. I think if you have some openness to that, it will really help you and probably put a lot less pressure on you as you're thinking about your career. Preena: Right. Yeah, that's really great advice. In terms of winding paths, switching over to your career and more of your day-to-day role, what would say is a challenge or challenges that you often find or encounter in your day-to-day role and how do you approach those? Natasha: That's a good question. My challenges in my day-to-day role. I'm fortunate in which I lead a functional team, so I have the benefit of having an amazing team that I work with every day across a variety of brands and products, across a very diverse portfolio. I've been lucky enough to do that at this current company, which is GE Healthcare, and the previous company I was at which is Abbott. Many times, if I think about the biggest challenges in my day-to-day, it really is around I would say three big areas. The first one is when you are such a large matrix company that is so dependent on your other functional teams, to ensure that you are all very clear on what the goal is, what you're all trying to accomplish, and that you're all rowing in the same direction, and have shared purpose and goals. Often times in our day-to-day, even in companies where you think everybody's on the same team, you can often find that there's actually sometimes a bit of misalignment or competing priorities. Sometimes that's because we're different functions or groups, sometimes it's because we're different segments. Sometimes it's just because we don't understand that shared goal. It's keeping everybody aligned to the mission, strategy, and vision. I would say as marketers actually, I feel like we are big drivers of that in an organization. It's something I always feel very responsible for and want to help my team feel very responsible for. That's the first one. The second one is we work in a very complex landscape. We're highly regulated here in healthcare. We want to do the right thing. Actually, I always tell people I'm so glad that we're highly regulated because the decisions we make actually impact life or death. It's actually for all the right reasons that we have very strict regulatory and approval processes, and then ongoing monitoring of all of our activities from our quality processes to our commercial processes and everything in between. But that can bring a lot of complexity. You've got to navigate a lot of sometimes tough legal and compliance discussions. But at the end of the day, the way we navigate them successfully as a team is really by reminding ourselves that the reason these regulations exist is to keep patients, our own family members who are consuming healthcare every day safe. We're able to do that. I feel we, despite sometimes difficult discussions, always get to the best answer in doing what's right for the patient and what's right for healthcare. Then the third thing, which is I think sometimes hard, is we all come to work every day because we actually care about healthcare and saving lives. That's sometimes really hard to remember when you get stuck in your day-to-day. You can be at a tough meeting, or a really hard strategy review, or a really hard finance review, or maybe you're missing your number in this sales goal. But at the end of the day, those hard days are really worth it because of what ultimately we're bringing to patients all over the globe. Again, there are these challenges, but over a long career I've been able to figure out how to successfully navigate them. So that I feel that even the challenges motivate me to come to work, and figure it out, and be better tomorrow. Better today and tomorrow than I was yesterday and in the past. I try to motivate my teams to think about that in the same way. Preena: Absolutely. Oh, yeah, that was very insightful. I think a lot of these can be applied to any fields, because a lot of times, in healthcare specifically, there is definitely life and death impacts. Then in other fields, people can have those same hard conversations and still need to have that resilience and build up that resilience to come back from that. Natasha: Very true. Very, very true. Probably very similar, just maybe different categories, but very similar discussions that would happen- Preena: Absolutely. Natasha: ... outside of healthcare, too. Preena: Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much for sharing this with us and thank you for joining us today. That is all the questions I have. We really value your time, and for coming on and speaking to all of our students. Thank you very much. Natasha: Thank you for having me. It was pleasure to talk to you.  

Send us a textWhat happens when your chronic illness becomes the catalyst for global exploration and environmental advocacy? This week we talk to Nicholas Mertens! Nick was diagnosed with Crohn's disease six years ago and he's turned his health journey into a platform for investigating how climate change impacts healthcare systems worldwide.While most college students rarely venture beyond their comfort zones, Nick has represented his university at United Nations climate conferences in Dubai and Azerbaijan, researched indigenous biodiversity in Australia, and traveled to eight countries across four continents—all while managing his Crohn's disease. The political science and environmental studies major shares his remarkable journey from diagnosis to long-term remission, revealing how these experiences shaped his understanding of global health challenges.The conversation takes fascinating turns as Nick details the practicalities of international travel with a chronic condition. From refrigerating Humira during 40-hour journeys to navigating customs with medication documentation, his strategies are invaluable for anyone with IBD considering travel. His culinary adventures prove equally enlightening—discovering his body tolerated exotic kangaroo meat perfectly while rejecting familiar McDonald's hamburgers in foreign countries. These unexpected reactions highlight the unpredictable nature of Crohn's and the importance of flexibility when managing the condition abroad.Nick's involvement with the Young Patients Autoimmune Research and Empowerment Alliance (YP-AREA) demonstrates his commitment to supporting other young people with chronic conditions. This growing organization creates educational resources specifically for adolescents and young adults navigating autoimmune diseases—demographics often overlooked in medical literature and research.Listen as Nick shares his powerful perspective on remission, defining it not by lab results but by quality of life and regaining control over your condition. His parting wisdom reminds us that climate change and healthcare are "inextricably linked," and understanding these connections is crucial for anyone living with chronic illness in our rapidly changing world.Links: Young Patients Autoimmune Empowerment Alliance (YP-AREA) Instagram YP- AREA YouTube- Video of the transitioning to adult care webinar they held with friend-of-the-show, Dr. Jordan ShapiroTraveling with prescription medications- US Customs and Border ControlTraveling with IBD- Crohn's & Colitis Foundation USAIBD Passport- nonprofit with advice on traveling abroad with IBDLet's get social!!Follow us on Instagram!Follow us on Facebook!Follow us on Twitter!

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma and Biotech world.AbbVie, a pharmaceutical company, has criticized President Trump's drug pricing proposal despite reporting strong earnings this quarter. The company is facing challenges with declining sales of its drug Humira and a struggling aesthetics business. Meanwhile, Gilead is moving forward with the launch of its HIV drug despite macro pressures in the industry. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary's recent statements have been fact-checked, with some contradictions emerging.In other news, SpringWorks is potentially being bought out by Merck KGaA for $3.5 billion. Wacker Biotech is offering services for advanced therapies. Stay tuned for more updates on these developments in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors.

Beatriz was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. It began at 16 when she heard a crack in her knee while playing tennis. By 23, her knee became severely swollen with synovial fluid, making walking difficult. After multiple knee scopes and a diagnosis of villonodular synovitis, she eventually saw a rheumatologist who diagnosed her with rheumatoid arthritis. She began treatment with sulfasalazine, prednisone, and later methotrexate, but her condition worsened. When her doctor recommended Humira, she refused, scared by the side effects. She always wondered why she couldn't live normally and was determined to find a way to recover her health. After two knee replacements, she tried various approaches—gluten-free diet, veganism, juicing—all with limited success. She then discovered the Wim Hof method and began challenging herself with ice baths. Following her second knee replacement, she started keto and joined a CrossFit gym with physiotherapy. She trained consistently despite the pain, building a supportive community. Her health improved significantly—she could run again, her elbows straightened, and she reduced her medications. After three years on keto, when some symptoms returned, she switched to a carnivore diet. Under medical supervision, her inflammatory markers decreased, and her symptoms almost disappeared. She now follows a lion diet (primarily ruminant meat) and has her blood markers under control. Beatriz is now a health coach, pursuing certification in SMHP and Carnivore nutrition, using her journey to help others with autoimmune conditions. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tichinavh/ Timestamps: 00:00 Trailer 01:31 Introduction 07:14 Keto journey inspired by coaches 10:27 Carnivore diet journey in Mexico 11:33 Carnivore diet: health transformation 15:55 Unique doctor's holistic approach 19:09 Appreciating life's simple joys 22:26 Managing keto diet inflammation 24:33 Two-meal, meat-centric diet 28:25 Carnivore diet eases joint pain 30:24 Ketosis boosts CrossFit performance 34:44 Avoiding doctors since 2020 36:22 Life's challenges and medical struggles 40:40 Challenges of advising family on health 41:50 Seeking doctors for metabolic health 45:40 Where to find Beatriz Join Revero now to regain your health: https://revero.com/YT Revero.com is an online medical clinic for treating chronic diseases with this root-cause approach of nutrition therapy. You can get access to medical providers, personalized nutrition therapy, biomarker tracking, lab testing, ongoing clinical care, and daily coaching. You will also learn everything you need with educational videos, hundreds of recipes, and articles to make this easy for you. Join the Revero team (medical providers, etc): https://revero.com/jobs ‪#Revero #ReveroHealth #shawnbaker  #Carnivorediet #MeatHeals #AnimalBased #ZeroCarb #DietCoach  #FatAdapted #Carnivore #sugarfree Disclaimer: The content on this channel is not medical advice. Please consult your healthcare provider.

Today I'm joined by Oliver Phillips, COO of Qmerit. We break down the #1 EV problem dealers aren't talking about—and how to solve it, why Florida is quietly becoming an EV powerhouse, how EVs are cutting through the political noise, and a whole lot more. This episode is brought to you by: 1. OPENLANE - ‪The world's leading online dealer marketplace for used cars, bringing you exclusive inventory, simple transactions, and better outcomes. Learn more @ https://www.openlane.com/ 2. Experian Automotive - Like most Car Dealership Guy listeners, you're constantly looking for the inside edge on the auto industry. So if you're ready to step up your game to the next level—outpacing the competition and building customer loyalty—there's only one place to go from here: Experian Automotive. They're the only ones with exclusive data across vehicles, consumers, and credit—plus expert data scientists who connect the dots to uncover the insights you need. Get the industry-leading insights from Experian Automotive today! Learn more by visiting @ https://carguymedia.com/4cfcLjZ 3. Qmerit - Selling EVs can have a lot of friction points. But home charging installation shouldn't be one of them. That's why dealers and automakers trust Qmerit—the go-to expert for home charging installations. Join Qmerit's dealership partner program and start earning referral incentives on every installation. Visit @ https://qmerit.com/carguy to learn more.

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma e Biotech world. Today, we will discuss the upcoming challenge in the pharmaceutical industry of manufacturing oral GLP-1 medications, following previous issues with injectable GLP-1s. Companies like Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are competing for dominance in the weight loss space with these medications. Additionally, we will explore the potential impact of Trump's proposed tariffs on EU pharmaceutical companies. Humira, once a top-selling drug, is now facing declining sales as doctors switch to biosimilars and new therapies. We will also touch on the potential benefits of single-use bioreactor technology in accelerating drug manufacturing. Lastly, there are updates on various companies' financial commitments and layoffs in the industry.

Biosimilars have been around for nearly a decade, but with Humira's list price of around $7,000, biosimilars for the drug are making an incredible splash in the pharmacy industry. With several biosimilars already launched in 2025 and more in the pipeline, many plan sponsors are wondering how to navigate the integration of these products into their pharmacy benefit strategies.   In this episode, Employers Health's Mike Stull chats with Jeff Casberg, head of clinical pharmacy at IPD Analytics to discuss all things biosimilars, including how biosimilar launch dates and pricing are determined, cost savings associated with these products, the importance of biosimilar formulary positioning and more.    Want to hear more from Jeff? Join us at the Annual Benefits Forum April 22-23 in Columbus, Ohio, where he'll present "The Impact of New Drugs and Therapies on PBM Spend." 

Protect Your Retirement W/ a Gold or Silver IRA Today!! https://www.sgtreportgold.com/ CALL( 877) 646-5347 - Noble Gold is Who I Trust An earth shattering now discovery has been made beneath the pyramids in Giza, meanwhile the collective consciousness in the United States and around the world is rising as the western world awakens to all of the old world technology and harmony which has been stolen from us. Clayten Stedmann & Jeffrey Stegman from FLFE join me with the quantifiablles. And it's only woo if you're still asking your "doctor" if Humira is right for you. Try FLFE absolutely FREE for 2 Weeks, it covers your home & your cell phone! https://www.flfe.net/sgtreport/ EMF MITIGATION, INCREASED ENERGY, IMPROVED SLEEP & More. https://rumble.com/embed/v6op9wo/?pub=2peuz

Generics Bulletin editors Dave Wallace and Dean Rudge discuss the latest updates on Stelara (ustekinumab) biosimilars in the US, including recent launches, pricing strategies, and parallels with the biosimilar Humira (adalimumab) experience.

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma and Biotech world. Novo Nordisk has launched a direct-to-consumer program for their drug Wegovy, offering it at a reduced price of $499 per month for uninsured or underinsured patients, less than half of the drug's list price. Meanwhile, rare disease biotechs are facing challenges as Congress has failed to renew the rare pediatric disease priority review program, creating uncertainty and concerns within the biopharma industry. Congress failed to renew the rare pediatric disease priority review program at the end of 2024, leaving rare disease biotechs in a difficult position. Companies spent $513 million on priority review vouchers in 2024. Delphia, a biotech company, launched a new precision medicine approach called Activation Lethality in May 2024. The top 10 best-selling drugs of 2024 included Merck's Keytruda and Abbvie's Humira. Pfizer is prepared to reshore manufacturing if tariff threats are realized. Other news includes BridgeBio Oncology's plan to go public, Abbvie's deal with Gubra, and GSK CEO Emma Walmsley's pay increase. Industry leaders will be discussing the future of orphan drug development and rare disease care at the upcoming World Orphan Drug Congress in 2025. Annalee Armstrong, senior editor for Biospace, invites readers to suggest topics for future coverage and provide feedback to improve their Biospace experience.

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma and Biotech world. Bristol Myers Squibb is seeking to broaden the use of its CAR T cell therapy, Breyanzi, to address marginal zone lymphoma as a strategy to offset losses from exclusivity. In other news, Boehringer Ingelheim has seen promising results in a Phase III trial for its lung fibrosis drug, randomilast, aimed at progressive pulmonary fibrosis. However, Pliant has experienced a stock decline following the halt of its Phase IIb/III study for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Additionally, Vertex has received FDA approval for its non-opioid pain treatment, while AbbVie has secured approval for a new antibiotic. Bain's acquisition of Tanabe for $3.3 billion is also making headlines. Regeneron is currently in a legal battle with Sanofi over the Dupixent pact, and Equillium's itolizumab is undergoing testing against Humira for ulcerative colitis. On the horizon, Acelyrin and Alumis are joining forces to address immune-mediated diseases, while Eisai is seeking subq approval for Leqembi due to sluggish US sales. Job opportunities are available at ATCC, AbbVie, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and Dren Bio.

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma e Biotech world.Eisai reports lagging sales of Leqembi in the US and is now looking towards gaining approval for a subcutaneous version. Novo Nordisk executives are trying to boost sentiment after the failure of obesity candidate Cagrisema, without providing hard numbers. Regeneron is suing Sanofi for allegedly withholding information about the sales of Dupixent. Nasdaq newcomers Acelyrin and Alumis have merged to focus on immune-mediated diseases. The AAPS National Biotechnology Conference will cover trends in research and biopharma markets.Equillium's Itolizumab is competing with Humira in ulcerative colitis. FDA approval of Vertex's non-opioid Jornavx signals a new era in pain treatment. Novo's bispecific for hemophilia has aced a phase III pediatric trial. Lilly has increased Zepbound supply, prompting analysts to question if it is sustainable. BMS has added $2 billion to cost-cutting plans and is eyeing deals after the success of Cobenfy. AstraZeneca has axed two Alexion assets as Q4 earnings exceed expectations.

Use the power of the collective by joining a class action lawsuit against Humira's manufacturers. Reach out to Norwood Law Firm today: https://norwoodlegal.com/ Norwood Law Firm P.C. City: Tulsa Address: 1717 S Cheyenne Ave Website: https://norwoodlegal.com/

The Daily Business and Finance Show - Friday, 17 January 2025 We get our business and finance news from Seeking Alpha and you should too! Subscribe to Seeking Alpha Premium for more in-depth market news and help support this podcast. Free for 14-days! Please click here for more info: Subscribe to Seeking Alpha Premium News Today's headlines: Biden finalizing DoE loans for Plug Power, Rivian before Trump returns - Bloomberg Trump's DoE pick pledges to 'unleash' LNG, nuclear power by paring bureaucracy Tesla offers discounts on some Cybertrucks as EV competition heats up Blue Owl Capital sees Q4 investment EPS of $1.01 UnitedHealth Q4 revenue miss caps a turbulent year Google Gemini paid subscribers fall behind ChatGPT, Claude: report UnitedHealth posts rare quarterly miss amid rising medical expenses AbbVie retains Humira market share above 70%: report AMD downgraded at Wolfe Research as firm expects slower GPU revenue growth Explanations from OpenAI ChatGPT API with proprietary prompts. This podcast provides information only and should not be construed as financial or business advice. This podcast is produced by Klassic Studios Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the latest episode of IBX: The Cover Story, guest host Dr. Reetika Kumar, SVP & Chief Customer Product, Clinical Solutions & Pharmacy Services at IBX is joined by Helen Sherman, Chief Transformation Officer at Evio and Julie Bartl, President of Employee Benefits at Johnson, Kendall & Johnson to discuss our recent Humira biosimilar launch and the unique approach we took to ensure cost savings while maintaining high quality for our clients and members.  

American healthcare is well known for its extreme cost and worst outcomes among industrialized (such as the 38 OECD member) countries, and beyond that to be remarkably opaque. The high cost of prescription drugs contributes, and little has been done to change that except for the government passing the Affordable Insulin Now Act at the end of 2022, enacted in 2023. But in January 2022 Mark Cuban launched Cost Plus Drugs that has transformed how many Americans can get their prescriptions filled at a fraction of the prevailing prices, bypassing pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that control 80% of US prescriptions. That was just the beginning of a path of creative destruction (disruptive innovation, after Schumpeter) of many key components American healthcare that Cuban is leading, with Cost Plus Marketplace, Cost Plus Wellness and much more to come. He certainly qualifies as a master disrupter: “someone who is a leader in innovation and is not afraid to challenge the status quo.” Below is a video clip from our conversation dealing with insurance companies. Full videos of all Ground Truths podcasts can be seen on YouTube here. The current one is here. If you like the YouTube format, please subscribe! The audios are also available on Apple and Spotify.Transcript with External links to Audio (00:07):Hello, it's Eric Topol with Ground Truths, and I have our special phenomenal guest today, Mark Cuban, who I think you know him from his tech world contributions and Dallas Mavericks, and the last few years he's been shaking up healthcare with Cost Plus Drugs. So Mark, welcome.Mark Cuban (00:25):Thanks for having me, Eric.Eric Topol (00:27):Yeah, I mean, what you're doing, you've become a hero to millions of Americans getting them their medications at a fraction of the cost they're used to. And you are really challenging the PBM industry, which I've delved into more than ever, just in prep for our conversation. It's just amazing what this group of companies, namely the three big three CVS Caremark, Optum of UnitedHealth and Express Scripts of Cigna with a market of almost $600 billion this year, what they're doing, how can they get away with all this stuff?Inner Workings of Pharmacy Benefit ManagersMark Cuban (01:03):I mean, they're just doing business. I really don't blame them. I blame the people who contract with them. All the companies, particularly the bigger companies, the self-insured companies, where the CEO really doesn't have an understanding of their healthcare or pharmacy benefits. And so, the big PBMs paid them rebates, which they think is great if you're a CEO, when in reality it's really just a loan against the money spent by your sickest employees, and they just don't understand that. So a big part of my time these days is going to CEOs and sitting with them and explaining to them that you're getting ripped off on both your pharmacy and your healthcare side.Eric Topol (01:47):Yeah, it's amazing to me the many ways that they get away with this. I mean, they make companies sign NDAs. They're addicted to rebates. They have all sorts of ways a channel of funds to themselves. I mean, all the things you could think of whereby they even have these GPOs. Each of these companies has a group purchasing organization (I summarized in the Table below).Mark Cuban (02:12):Yeah, which gives them, it's crazy because with those GPOs. The GPO does the deal with the pharmacy manufacturer. Then the GPO also does the deal with the PBM, and then the PBM goes to the self-insured employer in particular and says, hey, we're going to pass through all the rebates. But what they don't say is they've already skimmed off 5%, 10%, 20% or more off the top through their GPO. But that's not even the worst of it. That's just money, right? I mean, that's important, but I mean, even the biggest companies rarely own their own claims data.Mark Cuban (02:45):Now think about what that means. It means you can't get smarter about the wellness of your employees and their families. You want to figure out the best way to do GLP-1s and figure out how to reduce diabetes, whatever it may be. You don't have that claims data. And then they don't allow the companies to control their own formularies. So we've seen Humira biosimilars come out and the big PBMs have done their own version of the biosimilar where we have a product called Yusimry, which is only $594 a month, which is cheaper than the cheapest biosimilar that the big three are selling. And so, you would think in a normal relationship, they would want to bring on this new product to help the employer. No, they won't do it. If the employer asks, can I just add Cost Plus Drugs to my network? They'll say no, every single time.Mark Cuban (03:45):Their job is not to save the employer money, particularly after they've given a rebate. Because once they give that loan, that rebate to the employer, they need to get that money back. It's not a gift. It's a loan and they need to have the rebates, and we don't do rebates with them at all. And I can go down the list. They don't control the formula. They don't control, you mentioned the NDAs. They can't talk to manufacturers, so they can't go to Novo or to Lilly and say, let's put together a GLP-1 wellness program. All these different things that just are common sense. It's not happening. And so, the good news is when I walk into these companies that self-insured and talk to the CEO or CFO, I'm not asking them to do something that's not in their best interest or not in the best interest of the lives they cover. I'm saying, we can save you money and you can improve the wellness of your employees and their families. Where's the downside?Eric Topol (04:40):Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the reason they can't see the claims is because of the privacy issues?Mark Cuban (04:46):No, no. That's just a business decision in the contract that the PBMs have made. You can go and ask. I mean, you have every right to your own claims. You don't need to have it personally identified. You want to find out how many people have GLP-1s or what are the trends, or God forbid there's another Purdue Pharma thing going on, and someone prescribing lots of opioids. You want to be able to see those things, but they won't do it. And that's only on the sponsor side. It's almost as bad if not worse on the manufacturer side.Eric Topol (05:20):Oh, yeah. Well, some of the work of PBMs that you've been talking about were well chronicled in the New York Times, a couple of major articles by Reed Abelson and Rebecca Robbins: The Opaque Industry Secretly Inflating Prices for Prescription Drugs and The Powerful Companies Driving Local Drugstores Out of Business. We'll link those because I think some people are not aware of all the things that are going on in the background.Mark Cuban (05:39):You see in their study and what they reported on the big PBMs, it's crazy the way it works. And literally if there was transparency, like Cost Plus offers, the cost of medications across the country could come down 20%, 30% or more.Cost Plus DrugsEric Topol (05:55):Oh, I mean, it is amazing, really. And now let's get into Cost Plus. I know that a radiologist, Alex Oshmyansky contacted you with a cold email a little over three years ago, and you formed Cost Plus Drugs on the basis of that, right?Mark Cuban (06:12):Yep, that's exactly what happened.Eric Topol (06:15):I give you credit for responding to cold emails and coming up with a brilliant idea with this and getting behind it and putting your name behind it. And what you've done, so you started out with something like 110 generics and now you're up well over 1,200 or 2,500 or something like that?Mark Cuban (06:30):And adding brands. And so, started with 111. Now we're around 2,500 and trying to grow it every single day. And not only that, just to give people an overview. When you go to www.costplusdrugs.com and you put in the name of your medication, let's just say it's tadalafil, and if it comes up. In this case, it will. It'll show you our actual cost, and then we just mark it up 15%. It's the same markup for everybody, and if you want it, we'll have a pharmacist check it. And so, that's a $5 fee. And then if you want ship to mail order, it's $5 for shipping. And if you want to use our pharmacy network, then we can connect you there and you can just pick it up at a local pharmacy.Eric Topol (07:10):Yeah, no, it's transparency. We don't have a lot of that in healthcare in America, right?Mark Cuban (07:15):No. And literally, Eric, the smartest thing that we did, and we didn't expect this, it's always the law of unintended consequences. The smartest thing we did was publish our entire price list because that allowed any company, any sponsor, CMS, researchers to compare our prices to what others were already paying. And we've seen studies come out saying, for this X number of urology drugs, CMS would save $3.6 billion a year. For this number of heart drugs at this amount per year, for chemotherapy drugs or MS drugs this amount. And so, it's really brought attention to the fact that for what PBMs call specialty drugs, whether there's nothing special about them, we can save people a lot of money.Eric Topol (08:01):It's phenomenal. As a cardiologist, I looked up a couple of the drugs that I'm most frequently prescribed, just like Rosuvastatin what went down from $134 to $5.67 cents or Valsartan it went down from $69 to $7.40 cents. But of course, there's some that are much more dramatic, like as you mentioned, whether it's drugs for multiple sclerosis, the prostate cancer. I mean, some of these are just thousands and thousands of dollars per month that are saved, brought down to levels that you wouldn't think would even be conceivable. And this has been zero marketing, right?Mark Cuban (08:42):Yeah, none. It's all been word of mouth and my big mouth, of course. Going out there and doing interviews like this and going to major media, but it's amazing. We get emails and letters and people coming up to us almost single day saying, you saved my grandma's life. You saved my life. We weren't going to be able to afford our imatinib or our MS medication. And it went from being quoted $2,000 a month to $33 a month. It's just insane things like that that are still happening.Eric Topol (09:11):Well, this is certainly one of the biggest shakeups to occur in US healthcare in years. And what you've done in three years is just extraordinary. This healthcare in this country is with its over 4 trillion, pushing $5 trillion a year of expenditure.[New CMS report this week pegs the number at $4.867 trillion for 2023]Mark Cuban (09:30):It's interesting. I think it's really fixable. This has been the easiest industry to the disrupt I've ever been involved in. And it's not even close because all it took was transparency and not jacking up margins to market. We choose to use a fixed margin markup. Some choose to price to market, the Martin Shkreli approach, if you will. And just by being transparent, we've had an impact. And the other side of it is, it's the same concept on the healthcare side. Transparency helps, but to go a little field of pharmacy if you want. The insane part, and this applies to care and pharmacy, whatever plan we have, whether it's for health or whether it's for pharmaceuticals, there's typically a deductible, typically a copay, and typically a co-insurance.Insurance CompaniesMark Cuban (10:20):The crazy part of all that is that people taking the default risk, the credit risk are the providers. It's you, it's the hospital, it's the clinics that you work for. Which makes no sense whatsoever that the decisions that you or I make for our personal insurance or for the companies we run, or if we work for the government, what we do with Medicare or Medicare Advantage, the decisions we all make impacts the viability of providers starting with the biggest hospital systems. And so, as a result, they become subprime lenders without a car or a house to go after if they can't collect. And so, now you see a bunch of people, particularly those under the ACA with the $9,000, the bronze plans or $18,000 out-of-pocket limits go into debt, significant medical debt. And it's unfortunate. We look at the people who are facing these problems and think, well, it must be the insurance companies.Mark Cuban (11:23):It's actually not even the insurance companies. It's the overall design of the system. But underneath that, it's still whoever picks the insurance companies and sets plans that allow those deductibles, that's the core of the problem. And until we get to a system where the providers aren't responsible for the credit for defaults and dealing with all that credit risk, it's almost going to be impossible to change. Because when you see stories like we've all seen in news of a big healthcare, a BUCA healthcare (Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), UnitedHealth, Cigna, and Aetna/CVS) plan with all the pre-authorizations and denials, typically they're not even taking the insurance risk. They're acting as the TPA (third party administrator) as the claims processor effectively for whoever hired them. And it goes back again, just like I talked about before. And as long as CMS hires or allows or accepts these BUCAs with these plans for Medicare for the ACA (Affordable care Act), whatever it may be, it's not going to work. As long as self-insured employers and the 50 million lives they cover hire these BUCAs to act as the TPAs, not as insurance companies and give them leeway on what to approve and what to authorize and what not to authorize. The system's going to be a mess, and that's where we are today.Academic Health System PartnershipsEric Topol (12:41):Yeah. Well, you've been talking of course to employers and enlightening them, and you're also enlightening the public, of course. That's why you have millions of people that are saving their cost of medications, but recently you struck a partnership with Penn Medicine. That's amazing. So is that your first academic health system that you approached?Cost Plus MarketplaceMark Cuban (13:00):I don't know if it was the first we approached, but it was certainly one of the biggest that we signed. We've got Cost Plus Marketplace (CPM) where we make everything from injectables to you name it, anything a hospital might buy. But again, at a finite markup, we make eight and a half percent I think when it's all said and done. And that saves hospital systems millions of dollars a year.Eric Topol (13:24):Yeah. So that's a big change in the way you're proceeding because what it was just pills that you were buying from the pharma companies, now you're actually going to make injectables and you're going to have a manufacturing capability. Is that already up and going?Mark Cuban (13:39):That's all up and going as of March. We're taking sterile injectables that are on the shortage list, generic and manufacturing them in Dallas using a whole robotics manufacturing plant that really Alex created. He's the rocket scientist behind it. And we're limited in capacity now, we're limited about 2 million vials, but we'll sell those to Cost Plus Marketplace, and we'll also sell those direct. So Cost Plus Marketplace isn't just the things we manufacture. It's a wide variety of products that hospitals buy that we then have a minimal markup, and then for the stuff we manufacture, we'll sell those to direct to like CHS was our first customer.Eric Topol (14:20):Yeah, that's a big expansion from going from the pills to this. Wow.Mark Cuban (14:24):It's a big, big expansion, but it goes to the heart of being transparent and not being greedy, selling on a markup. And ourselves as a company, being able to remain lean and mean. The only way we can sell at such a low markup. We have 20 employees on the Cost Plus side and 40 employees involved with the factories, and that's it.Eric Topol (14:46):Wow. So with respect to, you had this phenomenal article and interview with WIRED Magazine just this past week. I know Lauren Goode interviewed you, and she said, Mark, is this really altruistic and I love your response. You said, “how much f*****g money do I need? I'm not trying to land on Mars.” And then you said, “at this point in my life, it's just like more money, or f**k up the healthcare industry.” This was the greatest, Mark. I mean, I got to tell you, it was really something.Mark Cuban (15:18):Yeah.Eric Topol (15:19):Well, in speaking of that, of course, the allusion to a person we know well, Elon. He posted on X/Twitter in recent days , I think just three or four days ago, shouldn't the American people be getting their money's worth? About this high healthcare administration costs where the US is completely away from any other OECD country. And as you and I know, we have the worst outcomes and the most costs of all the rich countries in the world. There's just nothing new here. Maybe it's new to him, but you had a fabulous response on both X and Bluesky where you went over all these things point by point. And of course, the whole efforts that you've been working on now for three years. You also mentioned something that was really interesting that I didn't know about were these ERISA lawsuits[Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974.] Can you tell us about that?ERISA LawsuitsMark Cuban (16:13):Yeah, that's a great question, Eric. So for self-insured companies in particular, we have a fiduciary responsibility on a wellness and on a financial basis to offer the members, your employees and their families the best outcomes at the best price. Now, you can't guarantee best outcomes, but you have to be able to explain the choices you made. You don't have to pick the cheapest, but again, you have to be able to explain why you made the choices that you did. And because a lot of companies have been doing, just like we discussed earlier, doing deals on the pharmacy side with just these big PBMs, without accounting for best practices, best price, best outcomes, a couple companies got sued. Johnson and Johnson and Wells Fargo were the first to get sued. And I think that's just the beginning. That's just the writing on the wall. I think they'll lose because they just dealt with the big pharmacy PBMs. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're so busy at Cost Plus and why I'm so busy because we're having conversation after conversation with companies and plenty of enough lawyers for that matter who want to see a price list and be able to compare what they're paying to what we sell for to see if they're truly living up to that responsibility.Eric Topol (17:28):Yeah, no, that's a really important thing that's going on right now that I think a lot of people don't know about. Now, the government of the US think because it's the only government of any rich country in the world, if not any country that doesn't negotiate prices, i.e., CMS or whatever. And only with the recent work of insulin, which is a single one drug, was there reduction of price. And of course, it's years before we'll see other drugs. How could this country not negotiate drugs all these years where every other place in the world they do negotiate with pharma?Mark Cuban (18:05):Because as we alluded to earlier, the first line in every single pharmaceutical and healthcare contract says, you can't talk about this contract. It's like fight club. The number one rule of fight club is you can't talk about fight club, and it's really difficult to negotiate prices when it's opaque and everything's obfuscated where you can't really get into the details. So it's not that we're not capable of it, but it's just when there's no data there, it's really difficult because look, up until we started publishing our prices, how would anybody know?Mark Cuban (18:39):I mean, how was anybody going to compare numbers? And so, when the government or whoever started to negotiate, they tried to protect themselves and they tried to get data, but those big PBMs certainly have not been forthcoming. We've come along and publish our price list and all that starts to change. Now in terms of the bigger picture, there is a solution there, as I said earlier, but it really comes down to talking to the people who make the decisions to hire the big insurance companies and the big PBMs and telling them, no, you're not acting in your own best interest. Here's anybody watching out there. Ask your PBM if they can audit. If you can audit rather your PBM contract. What they'll tell you is, yeah, you can, but you have to use our people. It's insane. And that's from top to bottom. And so, I'm a big believer that if we can get starting with self-insured employers to act in their own best interest, and instead of working with a big PBM work with a pass-through PBM. A pass-through PBM will allow you to keep your own claims, own all your own data, allow you to control your own formulary.Mark Cuban (19:54):You make changes where necessary, no NDA, so you can't talk to manufacturers. All these different abilities that just seem to make perfect sense are available to all self-insured employers. And if the government, same thing. If the government requires pass-through PBMs, the price of medications will drop like a rock.Eric Topol (20:16):Is that possible? You think that could happen?Mark Cuban (20:19):Yes. Somebody's got to understand it and do it. I'm out there screaming, but we will see what happens with the new administration. There's nothing hard about it. And it's the same thing with Medicare and Medicare Advantage healthcare plans. There's nothing that says you have to use the biggest companies. Now, the insurance companies have to apply and get approved, but again, there's a path there to work with companies that can reduce costs and improve outcomes. The biggest challenge in my mind, and I'm still trying to work through this to fully understand it. I think where we really get turned upside down as a country is we try to avoid fraud from the provider perspective and the patient perspective. We're terrified that patients are going to use too much healthcare, and like everybody's got Munchausen disease.Mark Cuban (21:11):And we're terrified that the providers are going to charge too much or turn into Purdue Pharma and over-prescribe or one of these surgery mills that just is having somebody get surgery just so they can make money. So in an effort to avoid those things, we ask the insurance companies and the PBMs to do pre-authorizations, and that's the catch 22. How do we find a better way to deal with fraud at the patient and provider level? Because once we can do that, and maybe it's AI, maybe it's accepting fraud, maybe it's imposing criminal penalties if somebody does those things. But once we can overcome that, then it becomes very transactional. Because the reality is most insurance companies aren't insurance companies. 50 million lives are covered by self-insured employers that use the BUCAs, the big insurance companies, but not as insurance companies.Eric Topol (22:07):Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because if you look at these three big PBMs that control about 80% of the market, not the pass-throughs that you just mentioned, but the big ones, they each are owned by an insurance company. And so, when the employer says, okay, we're going to cover your healthcare stuff here, we're going to cover your prescriptions there.Mark Cuban (22:28):Yeah, it's all vertically integrated.Mark Cuban (22:36):And it gets even worse than that, Eric. So they also own specialty pharmacies, “specialty pharmacies” that will require you to buy from. And as I alluded to earlier, a lot of these medications like Imatinib, they'll list as being a specialty medication, but it's a pill. There's nothing special about it, but it allows them to charge a premium. And that's a big part of how the PBMs make a lot of their money, the GPO stuff we talked about, but also forcing an employer to go through the specialty mail order company that charges an arm and the leg.Impact on Hospitals and ProceduresEric Topol (23:09):Yeah. Well, and the point you made about transparency, we've seen this of course across US healthcare. So for example, as you know, if you were to look at what does it cost to have an operation like let's say a knee replacement at various hospitals, you can find that it could range fivefold. Of course, you actually get the cost, and it could be the hospital cost, and then there's the professional cost. And the same thing occurs for if you're having a scan, if you're having an MRI here or there. So these are also this lack of transparency and it's hard to get to the numbers, of course. There seems to be so many other parallels to the PBM story. Would you go to these other areas you think in the future?Mark Cuban (23:53):Yeah, we're doing it now. I'm doing it. So we have this thing called project dog food, and what it is, it's for my companies and what we've done is say, look, let's understand how the money works in healthcare.Mark Cuban (24:05):And when you think about it, when you go to get that knee done, what happens? Well, they go to your insurance company to get a pre-authorization. Your doctor says you need a knee replacement. I got both my hips replaced. Let's use that. Doctor says, Mark, you need your hips replaced. Great, right? Let's set up an appointment. Well, first the insurance company has to authorize it, okay, they do or they don't, but the doctor eats their time up trying to deal with the pre-authorization. And if it's denied, the doctor's time is eaten up and an assistance's time is eaten up. Some other administrator's time is eaten up, the employer's time is eaten up. So that's one significant cost. And then from there, there's a deductible. Now I can afford my deductible, but if there is an individual getting that hip replacement who can't afford the deductible, now all of a sudden you're still going to be required to do that hip replacement, most likely.Mark Cuban (25:00):Because in most of these contracts that self-insured employers sign, Medicare Advantage has, Medicare has, it says that between the insurance company and the provider, in this case, the hospital, you have to do the operation even if the deductibles not paid. So now the point of all this is you have the hospital in this case potentially accumulating who knows how much bad debt. And it's not just the lost amount of millions and millions and billions across the entire healthcare spectrum that's there. It's all the incremental administrative costs. The lawyers, the benefits for those people, the real estate, the desk, the office space, all that stuff adds up to $10 billion plus just because the hospitals take on that credit default risk. But wait, there's more. So now the surgery happens, you send the bill to the insurance company. The insurance company says, well, we're not going to pay you. Well, we have a contract. This is what it says, hip replacement's $34,000. Well, we don't care first, we're going to wait. So we get the time value of money, and then we're going to short pay you.Mark Cuban (26:11):So the hospital gets short paid. So what do they have to do? They have to sue them or send letters or whatever it is to try to get their money. When we talk to the big hospital systems, they say that's 2%. That's 2% of their revenue. So you have all these associated credit loss dollars, you've got the 2% of, in a lot of cases, billions and billions of dollars. And so, when you add all those things up, what happens? Well, what happens is because the providers are losing all that money and having to spend all those incremental dollars for the administration of all that, they have to jack up prices.Eric Topol (26:51):Yeah. Right.Mark Cuban (26:53):So what we have done, we've said, look for my companies, we're going to pay you cash. We're going to pay you cash day one. When Mark gets that hip replacement, that checks in the bank before the operation starts, if that's the way you want it. Great, they're not going to have pre-authorizations. We're going to trust you until you give us a reason not to trust you. We're not short paying, obviously, because we're paying cash right there then.Mark Cuban (27:19):But in a response for all that, because we're cutting out all those ancillary costs and credit risk, I want Medicare pricing. Now the initial response is, well, Medicare prices, that's awful. We can't do it. Well, when you really think about the cost and operating costs of a hospital, it's not the doctors, it's not the facilities, it's all the administration that cost all the money. It's all the credit risks that cost all the money. And so, if you remove that credit risk and all the administration, all those people, all that real estate, all those benefits and overhead associated with them, now all of a sudden selling at a Medicare price for that hip replacement is really profitable.Eric Topol (28:03):Now, is that a new entity Cost Plus healthcare?Mark Cuban (28:07):Well, it's called Cost Plus Wellness. It's not an entity. What we're going to do, so the part I didn't mention is all the direct contracts that we do that have all these pieces, as part of them that I just mentioned, we're going to publish them.Eric Topol (28:22):Ah, okay.Mark Cuban (28:23):And you can see exactly what we've done. And if you think about the real role of the big insurances companies for hospitals, it's a sales funnel.Getting Rid of Insurance CompaniesEric Topol (28:33):Yeah, yeah. Well, in fact, I really was intrigued because you did a podcast interview with Andrew Beam and the New England Journal of Medicine AI, and in that they talked about getting rid of the insurers, the insurance industry, just getting rid of it and just make it a means test for people. So it's not universal healthcare, it's a different model that you described. Can you go over that? I thought it was fantastic.Mark Cuban (29:00):Two pieces there. Let's talk about universal healthcare first. So for my companies, for our project dog food for the Mark Cuban companies, if for any employee or any of the lives we cover, if they work within network, anybody we have the direct contract with its single-payer. They pay their premiums, but they pay nothing else out of pocket. That's the definition of single-payer.Eric Topol (29:24):Yeah.Mark Cuban (29:25):So if we can get all this done, then the initial single-payers will be self-insured employers because it'll be more cost effective to them to do this approach. We hope, we still have to play it all through. So that's part one. In terms of everybody else, then you can say, why do we need insurance companies if they're not even truly acting as insurance companies? You're not taking full risk because even if it's Medicare Advantage, they're getting a capitated amount per month. And then that's getting risk adjusted because of the population you have, and then there's also an index depending on the location, so there's more or less money that occurs then. So let's just do what we need to do in this particular case, because the government is effectively eliminating the risk for the insurance company for the most part. And if you look at the margins for Medicare Advantage, I was just reading yesterday, it's like $1,700 a year for the average Medicare Advantage plan. So it's not like they're taking a lot of risk. All they're doing is trying to deny as many claims as they can.Eric Topol (30:35):Deny, Deny. Yeah.Mark Cuban (30:37):So instead, let's just get somebody who's a TPA, somebody who does the transaction, the claims processing, and whoever's in charge. It could be CMS, can set the terms for what's accepted and what's denied, and you can have a procedure for people that get denied that want to challenge it. And that's great, there's one in place now, but you make it a little simpler. But you take out the economics for the insurance company to just deny, deny, deny. There's no capitation. There's no nothing.Mark Cuban (31:10):The government just says, okay, we're hiring this TPA to handle the claims processing. It is your job. We're paying you per transaction.Mark Cuban (31:18):You don't get paid more if you deny. You don't get paid less if you deny. There's no bonuses if you keep it under a certain amount, there's no penalties If you go above a certain amount. We want you just to make sure that the patient involved is getting the best care, end of story. And if there's fraud involved as the government, because we have access to all that claims data, we're going to introduce AI that reviews that continuously.Mark Cuban (31:44):So that we can see things that are outliers or things that we question, and there's going to mean mistakes, but the bet was, if you will, where we save more and get better outcomes that way versus the current system and I think we will. Now, what ends up happening on top of that, once you have all that claims data and all that information and everybody's interest is aligned, best care at the best price, no denials unless it's necessary, reduce and eliminate fraud. Once everybody's in alignment, then as long as that's transparent. If the city of Dallas decides for all the lives they cover the 300,000 lives they cover between pharmacy and healthcare, we can usually in actuarial tables and some statistical analysis, we can say, you know what, even with a 15% tolerance, it's cheaper for us just to pay upfront and do this single-pay program, all our employees in the lives we cover, because we know what it's going to take.Mark Cuban (32:45):If the government decides, well, instead of Medicare Advantage the way it was, we know all the costs. Now we can say for all Medicare patients, we'll do Medicare for all, simply because we have definitive and deterministic pricing. Great. Now, there's still going to be outlier issues like all the therapies that cost a million dollars or whatever. But my attitude there is if CMS goes to Lilly, Novo, whoever for their cure for blindness that's $3.4 million. Well, that's great, but what we'll say is, okay, give us access to your books. We want to know what your breakeven point is. What is that breakeven point annually? We'll write you a check for that.Eric Topol (33:26):Yeah.Mark Cuban (33:27):If we have fewer patients than need that, okay, you win. If we have more patients than need that, it's like a Netflix subscription with unlimited subscribers, then we will have whatever it is, because then the manufacturer doesn't lose money, so they can't complain about R&D and not being able to make money. And that's for the CMS covered population. You can do a Netflix type subscription for self-insured employers. Hey, it's 25 cents per month per employee or per life covered for the life of the patent, and we'll commit to that. And so, now all of a sudden you get to a point where healthcare starts becoming not only transparent but deterministic.Eric Topol (34:08):Yeah. What you outline here in these themes are extraordinary. And one of the other issues that you are really advocating is patient empowerment, but one of the problems we have in the US is that people don't own their data. They don't even have all their data. I expect you'd be a champion of that as well.Mark Cuban (34:27):Well, of course. Yeah. I mean, look, I've got into arguments with doctors and public health officials about things like getting your own blood tested. I've been an advocate of getting my own blood tested for 15 years, and it helped me find out that I needed thyroid medication and all of these things. So I'm a big advocate. There's some people that think that too much data gives you a lot of false positives, and people get excited in this day and age to get more care when it should only be done if there are symptoms. I'm not a believer in that at all. I think now, particularly as AI becomes more applicable and available, you'll be able to be smarter about the data you capture. And that was always my final argument. Either you trust doctors, or you don't. Because even if there's an aberrational TSH reading and minus 4.4 and it's a little bit high, well the doctor's going to say, well, let's do another blood test in a month or two. The doctor is still the one that has to write the prescription. There's no downside to trusting your doctor in my mind.Eric Topol (35:32):And what you're bringing up is that we're already seeing how AI can pick up things even in the normal range, the trends long before a clinician physician would pick it up. Now, last thing I want to say is you are re-imagining healthcare like no one. I mean, there's what you're doing here. It started with some pills and it's going in a lot of different directions. You are rocking it here. I didn't even know some of the latest things that you're up to. This seems to be the biggest thing you've ever done.Mark Cuban (36:00):I hope so.Mark Cuban (36:01):I mean, like we said earlier, what could be better than people saying our healthcare system is good. What changed? That Cuban guy.Eric Topol (36:10):Well, did you give up Shark Tank so you could put more energy into this?Mark Cuban (36:16):Not really. It was more for my kids.Eric Topol (36:19):Okay, okay.Mark Cuban (36:20):They go hand in hand, obviously. I can do this stuff at home as opposed to sitting on a set wondering if I should invest in Dude Wipes again.Eric Topol (36:28):Well, look, we're cheering for you. This is, I've not seen a shakeup in my life in American healthcare like this. You are just rocking. It's fantastic.Mark Cuban (36:37):Everybody out there that's watching, check out www.costplusdrugs.com, check out Cost Plus Marketplace, which is business.costplusdrugs.com and just audit everything. What I'm trying to do is say, okay, if it's 1955 and we're starting healthcare all over again, how would we do it? And really just keep it simple. Look to where the risk is and remove the risk where possible. And then it comes down to who do you trust and make sure you trust but verify. Making sure there aren't doctors or systems that are outliers and making sure that there aren't companies that are outliers or patients rather that are outliers. And so, I think there's a path there. It's not nearly as difficult, it's just starting them with corporations, getting those CEOs to get educated and act in their own best interest.Eric Topol (37:32):Well, you're showing us the way. No question. So thanks so much for joining, and we'll be following this with really deep interest because you're moving at high velocity, and thank you.**************************************************Thank you for reading, listening and subscribing to Ground Truths.If you found this fun and informative please share it!All content on Ground Truths—its newsletters, analyses, and podcasts, are free, open-access.Paid subscriptions are voluntary. All proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. I welcome all comments from paid subscribers and will do my best to respond to each of them and any questions.Thanks to my producer Jessica Nguyen and to Sinjun Balabanoff for audio and video support at Scripps Research.FootnoteThe PBMS (finally) are under fire—2 articles from the past week Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech Daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma and Biotech world. Merck has entered the obesity pill race with a $2 billion deal with Hansoh, allowing them to compete in the crowded oral GLP-1 space. The FDA issued warning letters against GLP-1 compounders, and the EMA will investigate the eye risk for Novo Nordisk's Ozempic. Novo has also collaborated with Photys to add a novel approach to their cardiometabolic pipeline. Intelligencia AI accurately predicted high-potential biotechs before the ASH conference, showcasing the reliability of its predictive AI methodology. Tenaya stock crashed due to underwhelming data on cardio gene therapy, with a focus on scaling in 2024. Manufacturing has become the hottest target in biopharma, with all of pharma vying for capacity and talent. AbbVie's Humira held 105 patents, preventing biosimilar competition for over 20 years, prompting discussions on policy reforms to prevent unjust extensions of drug monopolies. Moderna investors are advised to hold after a steep drop in 2024. The year saw cautious IPOs, restraint, and breakthroughs. BMS' cost-cutting campaign is in progress, while AbbVie continues its deal-making spree. Lilly and Pfizer executives express an optimistic outlook. Layoffs occurred at Outlook Therapeutics. Novo Holdings successfully closed its $16.5 billion acquisition of Catalent, despite facing pressure from various stakeholders to block the deal. The acquisition was approved by both the European Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, raising concerns about competition in the CDMO sector.

There's a lot of concern right now about healthcare affordability, but not enough action. Paul Markovich, the CEO of Blue Shield of California, is on a mission to bring down health costs by reducing administrative overhead and negotiating lower drug prices. In this episode we dive deep into Paul's call to action for healthcare leaders to tackle the affordability crisis head-on. Paul and I discuss:How Blue Shield slashed the cost of arthritis drug Humira, by offering a biosimilar at 25% of the costWhy reducing healthcare costs is critical to averting a national economic crisisWhether we need a new national mandate for health data sharingPaul's advice on tackling fear and being a brave leaderPaul says healthcare affordability isn't just a pocketbook issues for patients, it's also a huge economic issue for the nation:“The reality is we are facing a huge affordability crisis, a fiscal crisis right now. Even though our economy is running pretty much at or near full employment, we have record fiscal deficits… We cannot keep spending on this program the way that we are. We need to bring the spending down... Even our dysfunctional political system is going to have to deal with that.”Relevant LinksCalifornia's new data sharing law Announcement of new Humira biosimilar Investment in nonprodit Civica for lower cost genericsNew prior authorization platform with SalesforceAbout Our GuestPaul Markovich is Chief Executive Officer of Blue Shield of California, a nonprofit health plan with $25 billion in annual revenue serving 4.8 million members in the state's commercial, individual, and government markets. Markovich has launched and led numerous initiatives to drive innovation and help reimagine healthcare, including funding support for a statewide provider directory to make it easier for Californians to find physicians and facilities in their plan; supporting development of a statewide health information network for patients' records, enabling more seamless and holistic care; and investing in a partnership with the California Medical Association to help physicians pilot new care delivery models and leverage technology.Markovich is a North Dakota native and Rhodes Scholar with a master's in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University. He is a graduate of Colorado College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in International Political Economy and played Division I hockey.Source: https://www.blueshieldca.com/en/home/about-blue-shield/corporate-information/leadership/paul-markovichStay InformedSign up for The Other 80 Newsletter to receive a monthly update with reflections, news, events, jobs and funding curated for you by Claudia. Click here to sign up.Connect With...

Adam and Drew discuss the culture of too much self-esteem and the now defunct Naugles fast food chain. They then take listener calls on Humira and long distance relationships.

Show Notes   1. Jeremias S. Skyrizi overtakes Humira: “product hopping” leaves biosimilar market in limbo. The Center for Biosimilars. November 7, 2024. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://www.centerforbiosimilars.com/view/skyrizi-overtakes-humira-product-hopping-leaves-biosimilar-market-in-limbo 2. Jeremias S. Celltrion sets sights on 2030 with expanded biosimilar portfolio, market reach. The Center for Biosimilars. November 6, 2024. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://www.centerforbiosimilars.com/view/celltrion-sets-sights-on-2030-with-expanded-biosimilar-portfolio-market-reach 3. Ferreri D. Making the cost of IBD care sustainable. The Center for Biosimilars. November 2, 2024. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://www.centerforbiosimilars.com/view/making-the-cost-of-ibd-care-sustainable 4. Ferreri D. Achieving PFS in advanced gastric cancer with HLX02 biosimilar, chemotherapy. The Center for Biosimilars. November 23, 2024. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://www.centerforbiosimilars.com/view/achieving-pfs-in-advanced-gastric-cancer-with-hlx02-biosimilar-chemotherapy 5. Ferreri D. Subcutaneous infliximab CT-P13 superior to placebo as maintenance therapy for IBD. The Center for Biosimilars. November 16, 2024. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://www.centerforbiosimilars.com/view/subcutaneous-infliximab-ct-p13-superior-to-placebo-as-maintenance-therapy-for-ibd 6. Ferreri D. Challenges, obstacles, and future directions for anti-TNF biosimilars in IBD. The Center for Biosimilars.November 9, 2024. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://www.centerforbiosimilars.com/view/challenges-obstacles-and-future-directions-for-anti-tnf-biosimilars-in-ibd 7. Jeremias S. Breaking down biosimilar barriers: the patent system.The Center for Biosimilars. November 11, 2024. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://www.centerforbiosimilars.com/view/breaking-down-biosimilar-barriers-the-patent-system 8. Jeremias S. Breaking down biosimilar barriers: payer and PBM policies. The Center for Biosimilars. November 13, 2024. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://www.centerforbiosimilars.com/view/breaking-down-biosimilar-barriers-payer-and-pbm-policies 9. Poore D. Breaking down biosimilar barriers: interchangeability. The Center for Biosimilars. November 14, 2024. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://www.centerforbiosimilars.com/view/breaking-down-biosimilar-barriers-interchangeability 10. The Center for Biosimilars Staff. Webinar: streamlining the regulatory process to advance access to biosimilars. The Center for Biosimilars. November 21, 2024. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://www.centerforbiosimilars.com/view/webinar-streamlining-the-regulatory-process-to-advance-access-to-biosimilars 11. Jeremias S. Can global policies to boost biosimilar adoption work in the US? The Center for Biosimilars. November 17, 2024. Accessed November 27, 2024. https://www.centerforbiosimilars.com/view/can-global-policies-to-boost-biosimilar-adoption-work-in-the-us-

This episode breaks down real-world market tests and savvy competitive moves! Get actionable strategies for product changes, budget-friendly consumer research, and the power of understanding your audience.And don't forget! You can crush your marketing strategy with just a few minutes a week by signing up for the StrategyCast Newsletter. You'll receive weekly bursts of marketing tips, clips, resources, and a whole lot more. Visit https://strategycast.com/ for more details.==Let's Break It Down==05:17 Research program analyzes data for insights development.08:12 Humira: versatile drug, profitable for AbbVie, biologics.10:41 Focus on clear benefits to drive change.13:12 Assess market needs; ensure prototype satisfies criteria.16:52 Segmenting meals, not people, by occasion.20:39 Your plant probably eats better than you.24:58 McCormick's packaging change caused customer confusion.26:12 People ignore instructions; follow intuitive methods instead.30:53 Monitor competitors closely; adapt strategy cautiously.33:00 Engage directly with customers for market insights.==Where You Can Find Us==Website: https://strategycast.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strategy_cast/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/strategycast==Leave a Review==Hey there, StrategyCast fans!If you've found our tips and tricks on marketing strategies helpful in growing your business, we'd be thrilled if you could take a moment to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Your feedback not only supports us but also helps others discover how they can elevate their business game!

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma e Biotech world. Merck exceeded Q3 expectations but adjusted its 2024 guidance downwards due to underwhelming revenues from Gardasil and Januvia. Novo is making progress in resolving shortages of Ozempic and Wegovy. Amgen is gearing up for the release of obesity data for Maritide. AbbVie surpassed Q3 estimates thanks to Skyrizi and Rinvoq, despite Humira falling short. The FDA announced full availability of Novo's Ozempic and Wegovy after previous shortages. Compass has postponed pivotal trial results for psilocybin and reduced staff by 30%. Novartis secured first-line approval for Scemblix in specific CML patients. Pfizer's Q3 earnings were robust, with numerous deals being made as the election approaches. Smaller funds are starting to invest in early-stage science as larger VCs raise billions.

Send us a textBrandy Shantz is the host of the ‘Living Chronic' podcast. She suffers from severe Crohn's disease after serving near burn pits in Afghanistan. 4 years ago, she began having severe symptoms and ended up suffering a reaction to the Humira she was taking for Crohn's, which took 19 months for doctors to diagnose!! Upon receiving the diagnosis of drug induced lupus and neurological issues, Brandy worked to recover but never got back to herself. It took her another 2 1/2 years going to doctors to tell them she was not ok, and being told it was just psychosomatic. Then, finally she was diagnosed with cardiac autonomic neuropathy and small fiber neuropathy as a result of the reaction to the drugs. Even today, she is still going through tests to understand how severe the damage is and if she can actualy treat the problem. Brandy talks about advocating for yourself and learning to live and continue to thrive despite having a chronic illness. What an amazing story!livingchronic911.comInsta: Livingchronic911X: BrandySchantz TikTok: @brandyschantzSupport the show

Send us a textIt's no secret that medical drug prices have been out of control for most Americans.However, one hospital group has a novel idea to control drug spending.Blue Shield of California is bypassing PBMs by negotiating directly with the manufacturer of a biosimilar for Humira.Is this a one-off experiment or the start of a bigger trend that can drive industry-wide impact?In this episode of CareTalk, David E. Williams and John Driscoll discuss these price negotiation tactics and what they see as the long-term results of Blue Shield of California's attempt to lower pharmaceutical prices.This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/caretalk and get on your way to being your best self.As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the links provided.TOPICS(0:34) Sponsorship(1:50) Understanding the Complex Nature of Deals with PBMs(2:40) Examining the Humira Deal(3:18) Is the Humira Deal a Trend in Healthcare?(5:43) Will Deals Like Humira Lower Drug Costs?(7:30) Will Patients See Lower Drug Costs?(9:58) How PBMs Factor into Lowering Drug Costs(11:58) The Investor's Perspective on the Blue Shield Deal(13:20) How Patients Factor into Drug Negotiations(16:48) Exploring Cost Plus's Pricing Deals(20:30) PBMs, Inflation, and the Future of Drug Costs

Can you imagine the frustration of battling a chronic illness and not finding the right treatment? On our milestone 100th episode, we reconnect with the remarkable Alison, who was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 28. Her journey from struggling with an unhelpful specialist to meeting the incredible Dr. Tony is nothing short of inspiring. Despite the bittersweet news of Tony's upcoming retirement, Allison's story is a testament to the impact a dedicated and compassionate doctor can have on a patient's life.Hair loss can be a devastating side effect of chronic illness, and we tackle this sensitive topic with Allison. She opens up about how hair extensions and toppers have helped her regain confidence. We discuss the life-changing effects of Humira on her condition, and offer practical beauty tips for taming those pesky baby hairs. And because it's not all serious, we share our favorite coffee indulgences and quirky local coffee shop experiences, proving that sometimes, it's the small joys that make the biggest difference.Our episode underscores the essential role of community in navigating chronic illness. We stress the power of connecting with others who truly understand your challenges, and how sharing stories and support can be more beneficial than any medical advice. The importance of living fully, finding joy in each moment, and persistently seeking the right medical support is highlighted. Whether it's through a supportive network or a beloved doctor like Tony, inspiration and resilience are within reach. Tune in to celebrate our 100th episode and be uplifted by stories of hope and determination.Send us a textNew Intro 2024 2024 Thoughtful premium products for all the immune challenged.We make living with chronic illnesses easier! BeWell - Thoughtful products for those with an autoimmune disease. (wearebewell.com)Support the Show.Website: https://myspooniesisters.com/Support:https://www.etsy.com/shop/MySpoonieSisters

Crain's residential real estate reporter Dennis Rodkin talks with host Amy Guth about his latest takeaways from new market data.Plus: Fed minutes show Chicago and New York chiefs favored a July discount rate cut, exec affirms in merger hearing Kroger hiked milk and egg prices above inflation, another major drug distributor drops AbbVie's Humira and Revival Food Hall gets a new name with more breakfast and a bigger happy hour.

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma e Biotech world. A new healthcare AI accelerator program has been launched by Johns Hopkins, CareFirst, and Techstars, offering funding and guidance to startups working on AI tools. Medicare could face increased spending of $34 billion to $145 billion annually if all newly eligible patients received coverage for weight loss drug semaglutide. Pfizer has launched a direct-to-consumer service for migraine, COVID-19, and flu treatments similar to one by Eli Lilly. Johnson & Johnson plans to reform the 340B drug discount program, causing concern among hospitals and the government. Healthcare Dive provides insights into healthcare venture trends and offers resources on improving patient outcomes with data and AI technology. The publication covers news on various healthcare topics such as health IT, payer-provider partnerships, and value-based care. Healthcare Dive is operated by Industry Dive, providing in-depth journalism for decision-makers in competitive industries.On August 27th, Lilly introduced cheaper vials of Zepbound, a weight loss medicine, to compete with telehealth companies. Pfizer also launched a direct-to-consumer service for their migraine, COVID-19, and flu treatments, following in the footsteps of Eli Lilly. In other news, a startup backed by RA Capital raised $100 million for developing drugs for immune diseases, while UCB sold its neurology and allergy business in China. Additionally, Versant's Jerel Davis discussed build-to-buy deals and pharma investment strategies. The industry is moving towards more patient-centric commercialization strategies, with companies like Pfizer and Lilly breaking into the DTC market. This shift aims to give consumers easier access to treatments and improve supply chain efficiency. Pharmaceutical companies are exploring new partnerships and strategies to accelerate drug development and improve patient outcomes.Eli Lilly has reduced the price of its drug Zepbound by offering single-dose vials at a 50% discount through its online pharmacy LillyDirect. This move aims to expand the supply of Zepbound and make it more accessible to patients. In other news, a study suggests that Medicare coverage of Novo Nordisk's semaglutide for cardiovascular disease could cost $145 billion annually, depending on the number of eligible patients. Additionally, Cigna plans to remove AbbVie's Humira from its formularies, Oculis closes a phase III eye drop trial due to an administrative error, and Regeneron gains EU approval for a bispecific antibody for lymphoma. Furthermore, there have been lay-offs in the biopharma industry, and Massachusetts' biopharma job growth has slowed in 2023. Interested individuals can register for upcoming webinars and explore job opportunities in the biopharma field.

In this episode of HR Benecast, Mike Stull and Eric Dublikar cover your pharmacy and employee benefits questions including:   What's new in federal and state pharmacy benefit legislation. How Employers Health is working to help clients manage changes to their PBM plans.  What the switch to biosimilars for Humira and Stelara means for plan sponsors?  What impact are GLP-1s having on employer drug spend? Trends in GLP coverage for weight loss.

In this episode of Let's Talk Future, Joel Sendek and Matt Biegler discuss the use of CAR T-cell therapy in autoimmune indications. They explain that CAR T-cell therapy involves modifying a patient's T cells to recognize and fight cancer cells. While CAR T-cell therapy has been successful in treating certain types of cancer, its application in autoimmune diseases is still in the early stages. Matt Biegler highlights the challenges and potential modifications needed for CAR T-cell therapy to be effective in autoimmune diseases. They also discuss the companies involved in developing CAR T-cell therapies for autoimmune indications and the potential market size for these treatments.   Podcast Disclosure: This podcast is the property of Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. and should not be copied, distributed, published or reproduced, in whole or in part. The information/commentary contained in this recording was obtained from market conditions and professional sources, and is educational in nature. The information presented has been derived from sources believed to be reliable but is not guaranteed as to accuracy and does not purport to be a complete analysis of any strategy, plan, security, company, or industry involved. Opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Oppenheimer has no obligation to provide any updates or changes. Any examples used in this material are generic, hypothetical and for illustration purposes only. All price references and market forecasts are as of the date of recording. This podcast is not a product of Oppenheimer Research, nor does it provide any financial, economic, legal, accounting, or tax advice or recommendations. Any liability therefore (including in respect of direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage) is expressly disclaimed. Securities and other financial instruments that may be discussed in this report or recommended or sold are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and are not deposits or obligations of any insured depository institution. Investments involve numerous risks including market risk, counterparty default risk and liquidity risk. Securities and other financial investments at times maybe difficult to value or sell. The value of financial instruments may fluctuate, and investors may lose their entire principal investment. Prior to making any investment or financial decisions, an investor should seek advice from their personal financial, legal, tax and other professional advisors that take into account all of the particular facts and circumstances of an investor's own situation. The views and strategies described may not be suitable for all investors. This report does not take into account the investment objectives, financial situation or specific needs of any particular client of Oppenheimer or its affiliates. This presentation may contain forward looking statements or projections regarding future events.  Forward-looking statements and projections are based on the opinions and estimates of Oppenheimer as of the date of this podcast, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties as well as other factors, including economic, political, and public health factors, that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements and projections.  Past performance does not guarantee future results. The performance of a benchmark index is not indicative of the performance of any particular investment; however, they are considered representative of their respective market segments.  Please note that indexes are unmanaged and their returns do not take into account any of the costs associated with buying and selling individual securities.  Individuals cannot invest directly in an index. Humira, manufactured by AbbVie and Enbrel, manufactured by Amgen, are not covered by Oppenheimer Research Oppenheimer Transacts Business on all Principal Exchanges and Member SIPC 6840494.1

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma and Biotech world.Mountain Dew introduced the Mountain Dude character in a new campaign called "Do the Dew" created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners. The campaign features a stylish brand character and encourages consumers to get active. Amazon released a back-to-school ad promoting savings, Heinz launched a campaign inspired by superheroes for their condiments, and Kraft Heinz named former Pepsi marketer Todd Kaplan as their North America CMO. Hershey also handed US media duties to Publicis. Industries are adopting the media network model to replicate the success of companies like Amazon and Walmart. Additionally, America's most trusted brands like Nvidia, Sony, and Adidas are discussed in a sponsored content piece. Other trending topics include Havas agencies losing B Corp status, Google accused of misleading consumers, the WNBA securing lucrative media rights deals, and Meta in talks to buy a stake in eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica.Transitioning to the world of biotech, Revolution Medicines is advancing its cancer drug, a ras inhibitor, to phase 3 trials after demonstrating tumor reduction in pancreatic cancer patients. The drug showed promising results but also had high rates of side effects like rash and nausea. Roche's obesity pill showed significant weight loss in a small study, while Gilead's Chief Medical Officer is set to depart next year. The biotech industry in 2024 is seeing progress in gene editing, mRNA, and cell therapies, offering optimism for the future of medicine. Caribou is cutting its workforce, Sionna is exploring abandoned cystic fibrosis drugs from AbbVie, and the industry is focusing on successful commercialization strategies. Overall, the industry is evolving with new treatments and developments shaping the landscape of biotech and pharma.Shifting gears to healthcare news, the House Committee has urged the FDA to suspend the lab-developed test rule, citing concerns about potential alterations to the United States' laboratory testing infrastructure. Steward executives received significant compensation before the company declared bankruptcy, and UnitedHealth's cyberattack response costs are expected to exceed $2.3 billion this year. Senators have introduced bipartisan healthcare cybersecurity legislation, while a Chicago children's hospital faces class action lawsuits after a cyberattack. Branded calling is highlighted as a way to increase patient answer rates, and AI is showcased as a tool to address healthcare challenges. Overall, the healthcare industry is facing various challenges related to cybersecurity, financial pressures, and patient care.In the realm of pharmaceuticals, Boehringer Ingelheim has partnered with GoodRx to offer its Humira biosimilar at a 92% discount. This move is aimed at capitalizing on Humira's decreasing market share. Artiva Biotherapeutics has announced an upsized IPO of $167 million to support the development of its therapy for systemic lupus erythematosus. George Church's startup has raised $60 million for its investigational therapy for gout, while Aveo's Fotivda combination therapy did not meet its primary efficacy endpoint in a phase III study. Invitro Cell Research is also working on preventive and regenerative medicine to help people live healthier lives. Other news includes the FDA rejecting Orexo's opioid overdose drug and granting a third indication for Phathom's Voquezna. Pfizer's once-daily weight loss pill and ongoing disputes over CRISPR patents are also highlighted.That's all for today's episode of Pharma and Biotech daily. Stay informed and have a great day!

Today is an encore because I am going on vacation next week. It always feels a little bit like a time warp because by the time this show will air, I will be back from vacation. This show with Paul Holmes was one of the most popular episodes of 2023 and definitely is just as relevant now. A lot of the things that Paul talks about are worth repeating or listening to again. For a full transcript of this episode, click here. Before we kick in, though, I'm gonna repeat something that Ge Bai, PhD, CPA, says a lot: There's no angels and there's no devils in the healthcare industry. But we are talking about for-profit entities. And if there's one thing that's generally true about a for-profit entity, especially one that is publicly traded, it's gonna do whatever it can get away with. It becomes up to the customer to set expectations and using the purchasing discipline that they probably use everywhere else in the business because it basically is good business to have purchasing discipline. Before we kick into the episode, just a couple of things. Thing one, if you haven't, do subscribe to the weekly email that goes out describing the show. Here's just one reason to do so. It's really efficient because what is transcribed in that email is the whole beginning half (usually) of the introduction. So, if later on you are trying to remember which episode you heard something in, you can just search your email and find the show. How you subscribe is go to relentlesshealthvalue.com, hang out for probably 15 seconds, and there will be a pop-up. And while you're on the Web site, here's something else you could do. Go to the lower right-hand corner of the Web site. You will notice a little button. It's an orange button. There's a microphone. Click on that; say something like your name, your company name, maybe a word or two about Relentless Health Value; and then encourage others to subscribe to the weekly email that goes out, similarly to what I just did. Then what our team will do is take that recording and potentially use it at the end of some of the shows so we can hear somebody else talk besides myself. So, please do go over to the Web site, click on that little microphone, and record something that you might want to share with the other members of the Relentless Tribe. And with that, here's your encore. If this were a video show, I would stare into the camera with steely eyeballs right now and say that I have a special message for employer CFOs. If you aren't a CFO, pretend that you are so that you get the full effect here. So, now that we're all CFOs, let's pull up the company P&L (Profit and Loss) statement. This is what keeps us all up at night, right? Making sure that the net profit line at the bottom looks good. We could decide to lay off a few people. Reorg something or other. Beat up a vendor. We also could go over and have a strident conversation with sales leadership about what they can do to jack up their sales revenue. Top line begets bottom line and all that. Or, here's another idea: In this healthcare podcast, I am speaking with Paul Holmes, who is an ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act) attorney with a specialty in PBM (pharmacy benefit manager) contracts, especially the PBM contracts from the big PBMs that get jammed in employer plan sponsor faces by whomever and which they are told look fine and that the employer plan sponsor should just go ahead and sign. Now, if we, meaning all of us CFOs, sign that paper, or someone on our benefits team signs the paper … fun fact, our company just spent 30% to 40% over market for our pharmacy benefits. That contract we just signed contains all kinds of expensive little buried treasures—treasures accruing to the PBM and other parties, to be clear, and coming at our expense. There's 17-ish very common treasures in your typical PBM contract, and none of us will ever spot them unless we know what we are looking for. But let's dig into this for a sec, especially for all of us newly minted CFOs because the real ones already did this math. Say our company spends whatever—we're a bigger company, and we spend $100 million a year on our drugs. That's a minimum of $30 million that we got taken for … $30 million a year. Because of the huge dollars at stake (30% to 40% of drug spend), it's certainly the advice of almost anybody that you talk to who's an expert in PBM contracts to have a third party—not your EBC (employee benefit consultant), which we'll get into in a sec, but somebody else (a third party)—review every PBM contract. I mean, what's the worst that can happen for anybody considering having an independent third party review their PBM contract? It costs a couple grand in lawyer fees, and they give it a stamp of approval. Knowledge is power, and now we know. But let's just say this third-party review doesn't happen. We all go with a “devil may care” about this whole PBM overcharging us by 30% to 40% possibility. And let's say the PBM contract is, in fact, a ride on the Hot Mess Express but we don't know it. Here's two pretty bad downsides, especially now, this year, since the passage of the CAA (the Consolidated Appropriations Act). Number one bad thing: Plan sponsors may get sued as per the CAA for ERISA violations. It's not just the company paying that extra $30 million, or 30% to 40%, right? It's also employees. This is risk exposure, bigly. Just like it was on the 401(k) side of the house, which Paul Holmes, my guest today, mentions later on in the interview. He talks about just how much those lawsuits cost and, yeah, exposure. As I mentioned three times already, today I am speaking with Paul Holmes about PBM contracts in all their stealthy glory. The one thing I came to appreciate is that these things are works of art … if you're into those paintings of pretty flowers where, if you look hard enough, you spot a skull tucked in the greenery (memento mori). Paul is a longtime ERISA attorney. He has dedicated his career to helping plan sponsors in their negotiations with PBMs and trying to help them reduce drug spend, especially drug spend that isn't actually paying for drugs. Here's a link to an article we discuss about how a school district in Florida is suing their longtime EBC for taking $2 million a year in alleged secret payments. We also mention an episode with AJ Loiacono (EP379). And along similar lines, Jeff Hogan mentioned on LinkedIn the other day, “It's pretty amazing that just in the course of the [past few] weeks, I'm reading, seeing, and hearing about big new CAA breach of fiduciary duty cases.” So, Paul Holmes says this more eloquently, but if you're a plan sponsor, definitely get your PBM contract reviewed and maybe consider working with an EBC who's happy to sign the disclosure statement that your lawyer has provided without disclaimers. Also mentioned in this episode are Ge Bai, PhD, CPA; AJ Loiacono; and Jeffrey Hogan.   You can learn more by emailing Paul at pbh@williamsbarbermorel.com.   Paul B. Holmes, JD, is a seasoned ERISA lawyer with nearly 40 years of specialization in that field. Paul joined Williams Barber & Morel Ltd. recently, after 31 years with Nixon Peabody LLP and Ungaretti & Harris LLP. Paul is one of the few ERISA lawyers in the United States, concentrating his practice on PBM contracting and oversight. Paul represents large employers, Taft-Hartley welfare funds, and governmental units in their selection, contracting, auditing, and disputes with large pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). This work includes active oversight of the request for proposal (RFP) process for selecting a PBM, the negotiation and customization of PBM contracts, and legal audits of PBM compliance with their contracts. Paul provides insightful guidance on the prudent selection of independent pharmacy benefit consulting firms (who do not receive indirect compensation from PBMs), which independence is expressly required under Section 202 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (CAA). Recent efforts have focused on reducing wasteful drug spend promulgated by large PBMs in dozens of categories. These include the preference of Humira® biosimilars, reducing off-label utilization of GLP-1s, reducing huge markups on certain specialty generics, and customizing PBM formularies and clinical protocols to better control spend. He was selected, through a peer-review survey, for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® (2020 and 2021) in the field of Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law. Paul received his bachelor's degree from Bradley University and his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law.   07:41 What are Paul's usual observations when a PBM contract crosses his desk? 08:34 “If you just sign … one of their model contracts …, you're probably gonna pay 30% to 40% above market on your drug spend.” 12:11 What is a PBM lawyer? And why is it important to find an ERISA PBM lawyer? 17:12 EP379 with AJ Loiacono. 17:40 Who is on the hook for the cost of the PBM contracts? 21:05 What's the problem with most ERISA lawyers today? 22:56 Lawsuit about PBM contract. 27:43 What's Paul's advice for benefits consultants? 31:40 How much might a plan sponsor be paying their consultant versus what a consultant might be making from a PBM?   You can learn more by emailing Paul at pbh@williamsbarbermorel.com.   Paul Holmes discusses #PBMContracts on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast #financialhealth #primarycare #patientoutcomes #healthcareinnovation   Recent past interviews: Click a guest's name for their latest RHV episode! Ann Kempski, Marshall Allen (tribute), Andreas Mang, Abby Burns and Stacey Richter, David Muhlestein, Luke Slindee, Dr John Lee, Brian Klepper, Elizabeth Mitchell, David Scheinker (Encore! EP363)  

This week, your hosts welcome Maddy Martinez to the podcast. Maddy is a beginner lifting and fitness coach who's gone through her own complex autoimmune journey! Maddy joins the podcast to tell her story of being misdiagnosed with an autoimmune disease and the struggles she faced with doctors / conventional healthcare throughout her journey. She dives into symptoms like joint pain to the point that she could not walk, fungal overgrowth, weight gain, and more. The girls discuss how Maddy went about treating her autoimmune symptoms from both a conventional and holistic standpoint, coming off her HUMIRA medication, and why it's so important to be an advocate for your own health. Follow the NYQF Podcast Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/notyourquickfixpodcast/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Maddy: Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/maddy.nourishandlift/ Start to Lift Program: https://nourishandliftpgh.activehosted.com/f/54 Podcast: ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kinda-hot-kinda-healthy-with-maddy-martinez-and/id1712327132 Connect with Kara: Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram.com/karagoss_rd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FREE Facebook Group: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Functional Fat Loss Secrets for Women⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@karagoss_rd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Connect with Kylie: Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram.com/kylie.kaiser.comedy13⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@kylie.kaiser.comedy13

Since a number of biosimilars to Humira became available in 2023, many more arthritis patients have become aware of these drugs, and many are being required by insurance to switch to one. In this episode, a patient and a rheumatologist will discuss their experience with biosimilars and how they are addressing concerns. *Visit the Live Yes! With Arthritis Podcast episode page to get show notes, additional resources and read the full transcript: https://arthr.org/LiveYes_Ep103 (https://arthr.org/LiveYes_Ep103) * We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think about the Live Yes! With Arthritis Podcast. Get started by emailing podcast@arthritis.org (podcast@arthritis.org). Special Guests: Dr. Angus Worthing and Rick Phillips.

Back on medication and mindset changes during my Crohn's journey It's been over 20 years since my colon started bleeding and my inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) journey began. In 2003, I ignored the symptoms of blood, pain, and bloating for nearly three years. When I finally sought help in 2006 after a severe flare, it took another three years to reach a diagnosis. In those first six years, I was left to my own devices to try and stop the symptoms and find some way of living a normal life.  When I finally had an IBD diagnosis in 2009, I was relieved to have answers and eager for pharmaceutical help to finally eliminate my symptoms. Eventually, I ended up on a combination therapy of both Imuran and HUMIRA. I got better, but not completely. I didn't have the uncontrollable diarrhea that kept me at home for three months during my first severe flare-up, but I still struggled off and on with pain, blood, and mucus.  I found that I had to watch my diet in order to get the most relief, and my obsession with food and supplements became fanatical. Then, after five years, I thought I had learned and experimented enough that I could stop my medications. And so, under the supervision of my gastroenterologist, I did. I was 32 years old. I was completely free of medications for a little over a year. But, when I started living life again – enjoying food and finding myself in stressful situations that life tends to bring – I went into a moderate flare. I went back on medications for a few months and by the end of 2016, I was off all medications once again. After that, I had multiple minor flare-ups during the next few years involving pain, mucus, and bloating, that I was able to work through using CBD, extended fasting, meditation, and extremely restrictive diets. I didn't seek medication or medical help and thought I was doing fine. In early 2022, I was actually feeling really good and the minor flare-ups seemed to be behind me. But, as many of you can guess how this story goes, IBD wasn't done with me. In the summer of 2022, I had my first bout of intestinal bleeding in over five years. I tried to seek help, but the flare happened during the middle of our move from Texas to Florida and I couldn't get set up with my new doctors in Florida without going through a few hoops with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). It was (and I'm sure still is) a requirement that I see my new primary care doctor first, and then she would need to put in new referrals for me to be seen in the gastroenterology and nephrology clinics – even though I already had those specialists assigned to me in Texas.  By the time I got to see my new doctors, my symptoms had fortunately gone away and I was back to feeling good. But, that only got me dismissed by the VA's gastroenterologist and another four month wait to get assigned to a gastroenterologist in the VA's community care network, thanks to the help of my primary care provider.    For the past year and a half, I've been well. But we all know that IBD is a disease of remission and flare-ups. Fast forward to today, not even a full two years later, and I'm back in a moderate flare. This time, while it's not the worst I've ever been, it's the worst I've been in a long time. For the past two months, I've been passing blood and mucus up to twelve times a day, frequently nauseous, fatigued (so fatigued!) with low iron saturation showing on my lab results, experiencing intermittent pain and extreme bloating (my fellow IBD warriors know what I'm talking about), and feeling pretty lousy overall. Even my kidney function has declined (it's still fine and we're still watching it, but I find it interesting to see distinct changes in my lab values while my body battles inflammation from Crohn's). I've still been able to leave the house and do things, but the dread of being anywhere not close to a bathroom is back. I've been avoiding meals with friends, fasting a few hours longer than usual if I'm going to be out running errands, and wondering what foods are causing my pain this time. It's been almost ten years since I was on HUMIRA, and during that time, I've changed. For starters, I don't want my life to be controlled by my diet. I don't want to go back to being obsessed with food and every single bite I put into my mouth. My health journey is more complicated now. I'm on medication to lower my blood pressure and hopefully stop IgA nephropathy from causing further damage to my kidneys. I'm taking omeprazole to relieve symptoms of silent reflux, which is causing inflammation in my esophagus and stomach. And that little thing we call stress, which is also my biggest IBD trigger, is not going away – no matter how much sauerkraut I eat or meditation and yoga that I do. I still think diet and lifestyle play significant roles in overall health, but I accept and recognize that at this point, I need more than that. In my current state, I'm reluctant to use some of the supplements and methods I tried in the past. Now that I'm on blood pressure medication, I don't feel safe doing periods of extended fasting because my heart rate drops low and I get lightheaded if I go longer than sixteen hours fasting. So many products have warnings against taking them if you have kidney disease and I don't want to accidentally take an herb or supplement that either lowers my blood pressure even more or causes additional damage to my kidneys. I don't have the knowledge or expertise to start combining natural and pharmaceutical treatments; it's not a road I want to travel. Finally, even though daily meditation has numerous benefits, it doesn't eliminate stressful situations from happening in life. People get sick, work has deadlines, and travel or new experiences can cause anxiety, even if they are exciting adventures. So this time, I'm ready.  This time, I'm not starting medication with one foot out the door. I don't want to wonder what damage is being done by inflammation in my body during minor flare-ups that I try to ignore. I don't want moderate and severe flare-ups to prevent me from enjoying life. I want to live my best life and I'm ready to do that with a biologic medication again. When my symptoms began in early March, we were out of town, so I waited a week to contact my gastroenterologist. When I reached out, he ordered some blood work and a fecal calprotectin test. My CRP was quite a bit higher than my baseline levels, but still considered within the normal range. My calprotectin, however, was definitely high.  So, with my symptoms worsening and a high calprotectin test, my gastroenterologist recommended it was time I go back on medication for Crohn's and I agreed with him. I was finally able to receive my loading dose of HADLIMA this past Friday, April 26 (a biosimilar for HUMIRA that was introduced to the U.S. commercial market on July 1, 2023). My doctor did actually prescribe HUMIRA, but I learned that the VA announced in February that they selected HADLIMA (adalimumab-bwwd), a biosimilar, to replace HUMIRA on the VA National Formulary.(1) It's my understanding that the change took place just this month. As an aside, over the past week I've spent a lot of time on Google catching up on the progress that's been made in the last ten years for IBD medications. I've learned quite a bit about biosimilars, biosimilars with an interchangeability designation(2), and JAK inhibitors that I'll try to write about in a later post! Even though it's been less than a week since I took my loading dose of HADLIMA, I'm already starting to feel better. I know there are risks that come with medications, but there are risks that come with natural treatments and even greater risks when inflammation in the body isn't treated at all. I can't see the damage that may have been done when I ignored minor flare-ups during the years I stopped HUMIRA, but I know I don't want this current moderate flare to take a turn for the worse and I'd like to try and prevent them altogether in the future.  It's been a long journey with Crohn's disease and I know it's far from over. As I reflect back to my first six years with IBD and being left on my own to manage symptoms, I now wonder if I would have been so determined to come off medications ten years ago if I would have received the help and diagnosis I needed at the very beginning. I don't know the answer to that, but what I do know is that as life goes on, we evolve, we grow, and things change – including our perspectives and even beliefs we once held so tightly.  I'm ready now, and I'm grateful. Grateful to have a supportive gastroenterologist who listens and actually believes me, grateful to have access to medications I need, and grateful for a clear path ahead for this next chapter.  https://www.formularywatch.com/view/the-va-replaces-humira-with-hadlima-on-national-formulary https://www.organon.com/news/samsung-bioepis-organon-announce-fda-acceptance-of-supplemental-biologics-license-application-sbla-for-interchangeability-designation-for-hadlima-adalimumab-bwwd-a-biosimilar-to-humira/ * * * * * Support the podcast ❤️ at https://www.crohnsfitnessfood.com Get your copy of Crohn's Fitness Food and My Rocky Road to Health, Shop my favorite products, Read my favorite books, Subscribe to the podcast, Send a little love/coffee

AbbVie's Humira dam is beginning to crack. Crain's health care reporter Katherine Davis talks with host Amy Guth about how the tide appears to be turning as CVS' pharmacy benefit manager replaces the blockbuster drug on its formulary list.Plus: City Council greenlights Johnson's plan to pump $1.25 billion into housing and development, ShipBob picks JPMorgan to lead IPO, ex-Citadel exec's trading firm expanding and moving to revamped Loop tower, and how Chicago's venture-capital and startup scene stacks up globally.

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech Daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma and Biotech world.Biotech veteran Art Krieg has postponed his retirement to start a new drug startup called Zola Therapeutics, focusing on cancer immunotherapies without outside investors. Stoke's shares surged on updated results for their drug for Dravet syndrome, a form of genetic epilepsy. Moderna received backing from Blackstone for flu vaccine research and development. Armon Sharei, founder of the now-liquidated SQZ Biotechnologies, is starting over in biotech with a focus on cell therapies. The newsletter Gene Therapy Weekly provides insights into the latest news and trends in the biopharma industry, covering topics such as clinical trials, FDA approvals, gene therapy, and more. Industry Dive's Biopharma Dive publication offers in-depth journalism and analysis for decision makers in the biotech and pharma sectors.CVS has entered the biosimilar drug market with a new venture, as more than three dozen biosimilars have been approved in the U.S. However, their impact has been limited by patent thickets and insurance contracting that favors brand-name drugs. Despite this, there are signs that biosimilars are gaining momentum. Other stories in the biosimilars market include biosimilar makers adopting different strategies to compete with top-selling drugs like Humira, and Sandoz spinning out of Novartis to become a standalone generic drugmaker. This trendline provides insights into the state of the biosimilars market and is independently produced by journalists. Sponsorship opportunities are available for those interested in reaching biopharma industry executives. Biopharma Dive is a product of Industry Dive, Inc. located in Washington, DC.Walgreens has experienced a $6 billion loss due to the depreciation of the value of VillageMD, resulting in the closure of 140 VillageMD locations. CMS has implemented new regulations to streamline Medicaid and CHIP enrollment processes. UCI Health has completed a $975 million purchase of four Tenet hospitals, while Ascension is divesting three hospitals in northern Michigan. Additionally, over 2,000 nurses are planning to strike in Santa Clara County. Healthcare organizations are facing challenges related to staffing shortages, and technology is being recommended as a solution. UnitedHealth is offering loans to providers affected by cyber attacks, and efforts are being made to keep 'site neutral' policies alive. University of Michigan Health workers have unionized. Healthcare Dive provides insights on various topics including health IT, policy and regulation, insurance, digital health, and value-based care.

Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode and send us your health / relationship / life / just need advice on, questions to kindahotpod@gmail.com to have us answer your questions on the show.  Find us on all streaming platforms here, including the full video experience on our YouTube channel

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma e Biotech world.Astrazeneca acquired a biotech startup called Amolyt for $800 million, adding a late-stage drug prospect for parathyroidism to its rare disease portfolio. Bio, a lobbying group for the biopharmaceutical industry, changed its stance and now supports a bill to limit China's role in US biotech. German biotech Tubulis secured €128 million in financing to capitalize on the momentum in antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). J&J and Novo are supporting Asgard's efforts to develop personalized cancer therapies that reprogram tumor cells in the body. The FDA is focusing on early deaths in a meeting regarding broader CAR-T use in myeloma, particularly in trials from Bristol Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson. Additionally, there are five questions facing emerging biotech companies as they navigate through the industry's current landscape. The newsletter also covers various topics including the use of AI-enabled digital twins to secure the pharmaceutical supply chain, Medicare coverage of weight-loss drugs, and shifts in the clinical trial landscape.The EPA has issued a final rule limiting ethylene oxide emissions from medical device sterilizers, giving companies two years to comply. Exactech received a warning letter from the FDA regarding faulty implant packaging analysis. US hospitals expect an increase in procedures as staffing pressures ease, potentially benefiting companies like Boston Scientific, Medtronic, and Stryker. The FDA is seeking feedback on expanding premarket cybersecurity guidance. Additionally, AI and digital health trends are becoming more prominent in the medical device industry.AstraZeneca has acquired Amolyt Pharma for $1.05 billion, adding to its rare disease portfolio with late-stage candidate eneboparatide for hypoparathyroidism. The deal also includes ownership of azp-3813, being assessed for acromegaly in a phase I trial. In other news, Vertex failed to convince the UK watchdog of the value of its CRISPR therapy Casgevy, and Wuxi AppTec has been removed from a trade group amid US national security concerns. ADC Biotech Tubulis closed a $138 million financing round to support its lead solid tumor antibody-drug conjugate candidates.The Biden administration has proposed the implementation of "march-in rights" to seize patents for drugs that are priced unreasonably high. This move has sparked debate among stakeholders, with concerns about the potential negative impact on innovation in drug development. Despite efforts to bring down drug prices, critics believe that federal intervention in patent protection could have devastating consequences.The biosimilars market in the U.S. has been limited by patent thickets and insurance contracting, but there are signs of momentum. CVS has launched a new venture in biosimilar drug experimentation, while biosimilar makers are using different strategies to compete with top-selling drugs like Humira. Sandoz has spun out of Novartis to become a standalone generic drugmaker.Thank you for listening to Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma e Biotech world.

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma and Biotech world.The biopharma industry is facing challenges with the rocky launch of Roctavian by Biomarin, as well as the departure of AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez. Frontier is making strides in developing a better KRAS drug with support from Galapagos. J&J has received EMA backing for earlier CAR-T use in multiple myeloma, and a NEJM paper explores a remarkable CAR-T result in autoimmune disease. Biosimilars are gaining traction in 2024 despite initial hurdles, reflecting an increase in market presence.Sanofi and Regeneron's Dupixent are undergoing a speedy FDA review for potential use in COPD, with a decision expected by June 27, 2024. AbbVie's success with Humira serves as a model for navigating the patent cliff, under the leadership of Richard Gonzalez. Frontier Medicines secures $80 million in Series C financing, while Blueprint's cancer drug Gavreto finds a new home at Rigel Pharmaceuticals. Bristol Myers Squibb is focusing on diverse therapeutic options for cancer treatment, leveraging advanced modalities. GSK ends its collaboration with Vir Biotechnology on anti-influenza antibodies, and Indian drugmakers explore the weight-loss market with new products. Yearlybird Health launches a $186 million venture capital fund.Despite recent staff cuts at companies like Galapagos, Adaptive, and Ring, the industry continues to offer job opportunities at companies like Amgen, Novo Nordisk, Kerecis, Life Edit, Emergent Biosolutions, and Moderna. Stay tuned for more updates on the latest developments in the biopharma industry.

Rosemary also shares her experience with a mystery skin rash that ended up being a rare psoriatic arthritis medication side effect: leukocytoclastic vasculitis triggered by drug-induced lupus, and an eventual diagnosis of Palisaded Neutrophilic and Granulomatous Dermatitis. Throughout the episode, Rosemary and Cheryl discuss the importance of coping skills for difficult medical experiences. They also emphasize the importance of finding the right medications, lifestyle strategies, and the role of psychosocial support. Uncertainty and setbacks can be overwhelming, but self-compassion, support systems, acceptance, and perseverance can help you pursue a fulfilling life despite health challenges.Episode at a glance:Chronic Illness Journey: The interview delves into Emily's journey of living with chronic illnesses, from psoriatic arthritis, to developing drug-induced lupus which triggered leukocytoclastic vasculitis, and eventually being diagnosed with Palisaded Neutrophilic and Granulomatous Dermatitis (PNGD).Medication Management: Rosemary shares her experiences with various medications, including Enbrel, Humira, and Plaquenil, discussing their effectiveness in managing her symptoms and the decision-making process involved in discontinuing certain medications. They discuss the importance in recognizing adverse effects, while balancing this understanding with the benefits that medications do provide.Lifestyle strategies: Rosemary emphasizes the importance of physical activity and wellness in her life, despite her health challenges.Emotional Resilience: Navigating the emotional highs and lows with chronic illness can be overwhelming, from the initial relief of finding treatments to the grief and uncertainty of adjusting plans. Cheryl and Rosemary discuss self-advocacy, and pursuing fulfilling lives despite obstacles .Adapting to Change: Rosemary and Cheryl discuss how to adapt to change, both in terms of treatment plans and mindset towards living with chronic illness, including exploring alternative treatments and embracing new perspectives.Support: Rosemary reflects on the role of support from healthcare providers, online support groups, and in personal relationships - underscoring the importance of having a strong network when facing chronic illness.Advice to Newly Diagnosed Patients: “You don't have control of the fact that that happened to you, and you didn't do anything wrong. All you can do now is choose how to react to it. Do the next right thing. Little by little by little, it'll start coming together. And you're going to be okay.”Medical disclaimer: All content found on Arthritis Life public channels was created for generalized informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.Episode SponsorsRheum to THRIVE, an online course and support program Cheryl created to help people with rheumatic disease go from overwhelmed, confused and alone to confident, supported and connected. See all the details and join the program or waitlist now! For full episode details including a transcriptGo to the episode page on the Arthritis Life Website (transcript coming soon!).

When Boeing came to Chicago in 2001, it was a win for the city. But was it good for the company? Crain's Steven Strahler talks with host Amy Guth about the troubled planemaker.Plus: U of I's Discovery Partners Institute chief is stepping down, AbbVie sees signs of post-Humira growth in positive 2024 outlook, 180 laid off from University of Chicago Medical Center, and cannabis rescheduling faces an uphill battle, but DEA decision expected soon.Crain's Daily Gist listeners can get 20% off a one-year Crain's Chicago Business digital subscription by visiting chicagobusiness.com/gist and using code “GIST” at checkout.

The Health Advocates are back and breaking down all the latest news so far in 2024. Steven gives us a debrief on what to look for this election year. We then dive into Florida's plan to import drugs, why you may be switched from Humira to a biosimilar, and finally the latest hospitalizations and case rates this respiratory illness season. Contact Our Hosts Steven Newmark, Director of Policy at GHLF: snewmark@ghlf.org Zoe Rothblatt, Associate Director, Community Outreach at GHLF: zrothblatt@ghlf.org A podcast episode produced by Ben Blanc, Manager of Programs & Special Projects at GHLF. We want to hear what you think. Send your comments in the form of an email, video, or audio clip of yourself to podcasts@ghlf.org Catch up on all our episodes on our website or on your favorite podcast channel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Becky Winslow, BS, PharmD Host and Pharmacogenomics Medical Science Liaison; Behnaz Sarrami, MS, PharmD, Host and Pharmacogenomics Medical Science Liaison; Thierry Dervieux, PharmD, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at Prometheus Laboratories In this episode of the PGX for Pharmacists Podcast, Dr. Thierry Dervieux, Dr. Behnaz Sarrami, and I discuss Dr. Dervieux's career as a PharmD, PhD, and chief scientific officer who has designed a pharmacogenomics test prescribers may use to optimize biosimilars for autoimmune gastrointestinal diseases. Dr. Dervieux will illustrate to our audience pharmacogenomics' potential beyond Tier 1 and 2 genetic testing by describing the clinical validity and utility of his laboratory's suite of tests in the autoimmune gastrointestinal disease diagnosis and treatment market. Behnaz and I hope this episode will inspire pharmacists interested in pharmacogenomics to think beyond the boxed PGx test most laboratories offer when they think about PGx and consider all the biological systems in which genetics impacts drugs' efficacy and safety. Disclaimer: Behnaz Disclaimer: These are my personal views and opinions, and I am not speaking on behalf of Castle Biosciences, Inc. Becky Disclaimer: These are my personal views and opinions, and I am not speaking on behalf of any other entity.   Transcription: 1 00:00:06,190 --> 00:00:19,620 You're listening to the Pharmacy podcast Network in a world where one size fits all medications dominate the pharmaceutical industry. 2 00:00:20,079 --> 00:00:24,750 Precision medicine brings a ray of hope for those seeking customized health care. 3 00:00:25,350 --> 00:00:32,830 Pharmacists have a unique opportunity to help people in need of specialized testing to ensure medications work as intended. 4 00:00:33,540 --> 00:00:44,680 Welcome to PGX for pharmacists where we unravel the wonders of precision medicine and its potential to revolutionize the way we approach pharmacy care. 5 00:00:45,169 --> 00:00:52,790 Get ready to uncover the secrets behind pharmacogenomics and how it's transforming lives one genome at a time. 6 00:00:52,799 --> 00:00:53,189 Hello, 7 00:00:53,200 --> 00:00:53,950 everyone. 8 00:00:54,159 --> 00:00:55,080 I'm your host, 9 00:00:55,090 --> 00:00:56,389 Doctor Becky Winslow. 10 00:00:56,409 --> 00:01:09,860 And you're listening to the PGX for Pharmacist podcast that we magazine recognized in 2021 as the ninth most listened to genetics podcasts in the world on the PGX for Pharmacist podcast. 11 00:01:09,870 --> 00:01:16,690 We explore all things pharmacogenomics related and our mission is to educate and advocate for PGX. 12 00:01:16,769 --> 00:01:23,849 We accomplish this mission through exclusive interviews with highly qualified and well experienced pharmacogenomics. 13 00:01:23,860 --> 00:01:29,720 Industry leaders such as today's special guest and my name is Baas Sami, 14 00:01:29,730 --> 00:01:32,739 the co-host of PGX for Pharms podcast, 15 00:01:32,750 --> 00:01:33,860 Pharmacogenomics, 16 00:01:33,870 --> 00:01:36,819 medical science liaison and a mentor to pharmacist. 17 00:01:36,889 --> 00:01:40,239 Connect with us on linkedin and let's get a conversation going. 18 00:01:40,269 --> 00:01:46,720 We want to hear from you and how you're impacting pharmacogenomic stakeholders and what you have learned throughout your journey. 19 00:01:48,510 --> 00:01:49,010 Ok. 20 00:01:49,019 --> 00:01:50,819 So without any further ado, 21 00:01:50,839 --> 00:01:54,769 I'm extremely pleased to introduce to our audience. 22 00:01:54,919 --> 00:01:56,059 Doctor Theory Devo, 23 00:01:57,239 --> 00:02:01,129 the Chief Scientific Officer at Prometheus Laboratories, 24 00:02:01,139 --> 00:02:08,139 and Perme Prometheus Laboratories is a reference clinical laboratory that's focused on the diagnosis, 25 00:02:08,149 --> 00:02:13,330 prognosis and monitoring of immune mediated inflammatory diseases. 26 00:02:13,970 --> 00:02:14,229 So, 27 00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:14,649 thank you, 28 00:02:14,660 --> 00:02:17,759 Doctor De for joining us on the podcast. 29 00:02:17,770 --> 00:02:18,589 Today. 30 00:02:18,600 --> 00:02:23,190 I'm excited to share your and Prometheus's story with our audience. 31 00:02:23,649 --> 00:02:25,630 Um in particular, 32 00:02:25,639 --> 00:02:45,369 I'm excited about you sharing your career journey as a farm D phd and Chief scientific officer and designer of the Predictor PK AD A which is a precision guided dosing test for the optimization of Humira Remicade and their bio cylinders. 33 00:02:46,119 --> 00:02:46,449 So, 34 00:02:46,460 --> 00:03:04,220 one of Bana's and my main goals for this episode of the PGX for Pharmacist podcast is to expand our audience's notion of what a PGX test looks like and to inspire them to think bigger than the traditional box PGX test. 35 00:03:04,229 --> 00:03:08,020 Most of them or most of you are uh familiar with. 36 00:03:09,020 --> 00:03:09,429 So, 37 00:03:09,440 --> 00:03:22,179 Doctor D uh I'd like to start the podcast by having our guests um introduce themselves and elaborate on how you are a pharmacogenomics expert. 38 00:03:23,619 --> 00:03:23,800 Yeah, 39 00:03:23,809 --> 00:03:24,250 thank you, 40 00:03:24,259 --> 00:03:25,759 Becky for having me. 41 00:03:25,770 --> 00:03:26,850 Uh uh Yes. 42 00:03:26,860 --> 00:03:27,289 So I am a, 43 00:03:27,300 --> 00:03:30,820 I am a pharmacist uh with uh a family who is a, 44 00:03:30,830 --> 00:03:33,039 a doctorate in pharmacokinetics. 45 00:03:33,539 --> 00:03:44,520 Uh I completed my studies in France and I came as a postdoc uh fellow uh to work in the United States about 20 years ago to work on the pharmacogenomic of anti cancer agents, 46 00:03:44,929 --> 00:03:49,160 uh primarily uh six Maturin as well as methotrexate. 47 00:03:49,169 --> 00:03:50,550 After my post doc, 48 00:03:50,770 --> 00:03:52,960 uh I moved uh in industry for promet. 49 00:03:53,490 --> 00:04:01,429 So I have a large experience in uh uh the implementation of pharmacogenetics testing in immune mediated inflammatory disease. 50 00:04:01,509 --> 00:04:12,550 Our lab Rome was the first uh clinical laboratory in the United States to offer the fin uh metyl transfer genotyping as well as the thin metabolites. 51 00:04:12,559 --> 00:04:13,029 So, 52 00:04:13,050 --> 00:04:21,989 uh uh of uh of 70 publications in the field and uh I'm very uh very excited to have uh to be on the postcard with you uh uh today. 53 00:04:23,660 --> 00:04:24,220 All right. 54 00:04:24,230 --> 00:04:27,359 So thank you for qualifying yourself as an expert. 55 00:04:27,369 --> 00:04:27,619 So, 56 00:04:27,630 --> 00:04:32,839 let's jump right in and delve into your current PGX work. 57 00:04:32,850 --> 00:04:33,279 So, 58 00:04:33,489 --> 00:04:36,540 if you'll tell us um a little about Prometheus, 59 00:04:36,549 --> 00:04:38,000 specifically, 60 00:04:38,010 --> 00:04:40,350 what is Prometheus's mission? 61 00:04:40,359 --> 00:04:43,799 And how are you guys going about accomplishing your mission? 62 00:04:44,760 --> 00:04:44,980 Yeah, 63 00:04:44,989 --> 00:04:45,700 sure. 64 00:04:45,709 --> 00:04:47,459 Uh So Promet is a, 65 00:04:47,470 --> 00:04:52,790 is a reference uh clinical laboratory based in Southern California in San Diego. 66 00:04:53,230 --> 00:04:56,809 Uh The company has been there for uh over 25 years. 67 00:04:56,820 --> 00:05:03,950 We are uh specialize in the differential diagnosis of autoimmune G I disease uh disorders, 68 00:05:04,059 --> 00:05:06,019 uh gastrointestinal disorder, 69 00:05:06,230 --> 00:05:08,619 uh and inflammatory bowel disease. 70 00:05:08,980 --> 00:05:10,299 And over the years, 71 00:05:10,309 --> 00:05:16,600 we have developed a portfolio of a differentiated solution to facilitate the diagnosis, 72 00:05:16,609 --> 00:05:17,470 the prognosis, 73 00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:18,429 the monitoring, 74 00:05:18,660 --> 00:05:21,910 as well as therapy selection with pharmacogenetics testing, 75 00:05:21,920 --> 00:05:24,730 which we are offering to our clinical laboratory. 76 00:05:24,829 --> 00:05:26,350 And most importantly, 77 00:05:26,410 --> 00:05:27,299 uh recently, 78 00:05:27,309 --> 00:05:35,660 we are uh uh developing some uh uh testing solution with the credit topic care test to optimize treatment to uh biologics. 79 00:05:36,470 --> 00:05:37,130 Ok. 80 00:05:37,140 --> 00:05:37,329 Well, 81 00:05:37,339 --> 00:05:37,450 that, 82 00:05:37,459 --> 00:05:38,049 that's great. 83 00:05:38,059 --> 00:05:46,100 Can you also tell us uh about the Prois Library of Precision Medicine Tests for inflammatory bowel disease for patients? 84 00:05:46,109 --> 00:05:49,230 how they benefit medication therapy management. 85 00:05:49,239 --> 00:05:56,429 Stakeholders across the IB DS patients journey from diagnosis to treatment to disease, 86 00:05:56,440 --> 00:06:02,049 monitoring through remission and how they differ from other lab tests for IBD and his treatments. 87 00:06:02,709 --> 00:06:03,209 Yes. 88 00:06:03,220 --> 00:06:03,369 So, 89 00:06:03,380 --> 00:06:04,399 so we uh our, 90 00:06:04,410 --> 00:06:10,100 our clinical laboratory offers some uh highly specialized test to facilitate the, 91 00:06:10,109 --> 00:06:16,779 the diagnostic of uh to facilitate the differential diagnosis of uh uh inflammatory bowel disease. 92 00:06:16,790 --> 00:06:22,359 So we are following uh testing solution with uh serological testing, 93 00:06:22,529 --> 00:06:23,799 for example, 94 00:06:23,809 --> 00:06:38,410 uh uh piana as as as well as uh macro microbial uh uh antibodies that are present uh uh in Crohn's disease as well as uh over uh auto uh auto antibodies that are present in er colitis. 95 00:06:39,339 --> 00:06:43,684 These are conditions that are uh uh somewhat difficult to treat. 96 00:06:43,704 --> 00:06:49,994 Uh And uh we are uh uh offering those tests to uh help uh gastroenterologist. 97 00:06:50,015 --> 00:06:51,114 Uh uh first of all, 98 00:06:51,125 --> 00:07:03,434 to establish a differential diagnosis of IBD as compared to other uh condition typically uh uh irritable bowel syndrome as well as over gastrointestinal disorder. 99 00:07:03,445 --> 00:07:05,635 When the diagnostic is established, 100 00:07:05,910 --> 00:07:31,839 uh we offer uh testing to uh establish a prognosis where we're gonna in inform the clinician that the patient has a more aggressive uh disease that will require more aggressive treatment where uh we can uh provide the testing solution to initiate uh uh the most appropriate therapy for uh for the patient uh with uh a testing where we are uh basically uh you know, 101 00:07:31,850 --> 00:07:36,559 establish de determining some genotyping with the fit transferal genotyping. 102 00:07:36,570 --> 00:07:37,279 For example, 103 00:07:37,290 --> 00:07:40,250 where we can uh indicate that the patient is, 104 00:07:40,260 --> 00:07:45,079 is likely uh to present with a side effect to those medication. 105 00:07:45,399 --> 00:07:46,170 And once you know, 106 00:07:46,179 --> 00:07:47,799 the the treatment is initiative, 107 00:07:47,809 --> 00:08:16,089 we have a portfolio of solution uh to facilitate the monitoring of the disease of the inflammatory bowel disease as well as the dosing optimization with uh uh the answer test which uh measure blood level uh for uh uh monoclonal antibodies that are indicated in the treatment of IB start with starting with Infliximab Adalimumab as well as uh Tein and vidal. 108 00:08:16,980 --> 00:08:24,040 So we have a comprehensive portfolio to uh to surround the clinician with uh a variety of testing solution. 109 00:08:24,049 --> 00:08:30,250 With our goal being to improve the uh the outcome uh of patients with uh with diabetes. 110 00:08:30,260 --> 00:08:34,520 And I think that the pharmacist has a very important role to play from that perspective. 111 00:08:35,179 --> 00:08:36,039 So theory, 112 00:08:36,049 --> 00:08:40,239 could you elaborate for us more on the predictor test? 113 00:08:40,249 --> 00:08:42,758 Um especially since you designed that test, 114 00:08:42,768 --> 00:08:44,218 we'd really like to know, 115 00:08:44,489 --> 00:08:45,039 um you know, 116 00:08:45,049 --> 00:08:49,638 what did that take and what role does it play in your suite of testing? 117 00:08:51,049 --> 00:08:51,270 Yeah. 118 00:08:51,280 --> 00:08:51,890 Sure. 119 00:08:51,900 --> 00:08:52,510 So the, 120 00:08:52,520 --> 00:08:52,570 the, 121 00:08:52,580 --> 00:08:52,989 the, 122 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:53,229 the, 123 00:08:53,239 --> 00:08:59,960 the predictor test is uh uh is uh is utilized when the patient is receiving treatment. 124 00:09:00,280 --> 00:09:18,190 It's been speci specifically designed to optimize uh biological uh uh disease modifiers such as Infliximab adalimumab that are co therapies in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease as well as other immune uh mediated inflammatory. 125 00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:21,549 This is what the test does is to you connect the blood specimen, 126 00:09:22,229 --> 00:09:23,049 uh you know, 127 00:09:23,059 --> 00:09:24,750 with dosing information. 128 00:09:25,039 --> 00:09:41,989 And what we do is to uh uh provide guidance uh to clinician with uh respect of the best dose to give in order to achieve the best the level which is the most consistent with uh uh the disease control that needs to be achieved for the patient. 129 00:09:42,169 --> 00:09:43,729 Typically a vast majority, 130 00:09:43,739 --> 00:09:46,159 about two third of a third to two third, 131 00:09:46,169 --> 00:09:54,669 a third of patient uh tend to be uh uh unresponsive uh to this uh very expensive medication. 132 00:09:54,989 --> 00:09:57,960 Uh Not because they don't have the uh you know, 133 00:09:57,969 --> 00:09:59,289 typically because they have a, 134 00:09:59,299 --> 00:09:59,590 you know, 135 00:09:59,599 --> 00:10:05,599 pharmacokinetic uh suboptimal pharmacokinetic uh that makes them uh you know, 136 00:10:05,609 --> 00:10:09,440 unresponsive because uh not enough drug has been given. 137 00:10:09,450 --> 00:10:18,469 So what we do with a predictor test is to basically estimate the pa the pharmacokinetic uh parameter for the patient. 138 00:10:18,750 --> 00:10:24,729 And from then uh re report the best dose uh to give in order to achieve the, 139 00:10:24,760 --> 00:10:31,570 the level which is consistent with the uh the most uh uh effective disease control to be achieved for the patient. 140 00:10:32,169 --> 00:10:33,059 So we are offering, 141 00:10:33,070 --> 00:10:38,049 we have developed a test for the Infliximab as well as Adalimumab which is Humira, 142 00:10:38,909 --> 00:10:41,309 but these are antimony causes factor. 143 00:10:41,460 --> 00:10:49,549 And we are also developing the test for vidur as well as uh is that are widely used also in the treatment of, 144 00:10:49,559 --> 00:10:51,969 of uh inflammatory bubble disease. 145 00:10:51,979 --> 00:10:52,669 Wow, 146 00:10:52,679 --> 00:10:55,450 uh for MET is a suite of tests. 147 00:10:55,460 --> 00:11:00,940 Goes well beyond um the PGX testing that our audience is most familiar with, 148 00:11:01,299 --> 00:11:08,679 uh which typically only includes snips for cyp genes and some pharmacodynamic genes. 149 00:11:08,690 --> 00:11:31,424 This is really exciting um genes and biomarkers related to immunology are not commonly found in what I call the box PGX tests such as those uh made by large uh laboratory manufacturing companies um where the panel has a set number of genes and uh you know, 150 00:11:31,434 --> 00:11:36,054 it was developed by a larger laboratory for maybe smaller laboratories use. 151 00:11:36,729 --> 00:11:39,010 So my understanding, 152 00:11:39,020 --> 00:11:53,729 having talked with you extensively theory is that immunology has fewer PGX test available because it's actually more difficult say than oncology to research and develop tests. 153 00:11:53,739 --> 00:11:54,119 So, 154 00:11:54,130 --> 00:12:00,729 could you elaborate for our audience on the difficulties that are associated with immunology, 155 00:12:00,739 --> 00:12:05,830 research and developing tests uh for immunology versus say oncology? 156 00:12:06,330 --> 00:12:06,530 Yeah, 157 00:12:06,539 --> 00:12:07,049 sure. 158 00:12:07,059 --> 00:12:09,969 So in uh in immunology, 159 00:12:09,979 --> 00:12:11,590 as compared to oncology, 160 00:12:11,599 --> 00:12:17,169 there is no such a thing such as a somatic mutation where for example, 161 00:12:17,179 --> 00:12:18,429 you're gonna have a behalf, 162 00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:18,659 you know, 163 00:12:18,669 --> 00:12:20,349 that indicates that the patient, 164 00:12:20,679 --> 00:12:20,919 you know, 165 00:12:20,929 --> 00:12:25,239 is likely to benefit or not from some treatment in immunology. 166 00:12:25,250 --> 00:12:26,750 This is far more complicated, 167 00:12:26,760 --> 00:12:28,830 complicated for the reason, 168 00:12:29,239 --> 00:12:31,020 starting with uh the fact that, 169 00:12:31,030 --> 00:12:31,179 you know, 170 00:12:31,190 --> 00:12:36,219 the response to this uh medication uh are multifactorial. 171 00:12:36,260 --> 00:12:37,820 And the fact that uh you know, 172 00:12:37,830 --> 00:12:39,380 the mutation that uh the, 173 00:12:39,390 --> 00:12:39,619 the, 174 00:12:39,630 --> 00:12:45,190 the single nucleotide polymorphism in the GM line which uh uh you know, 175 00:12:45,200 --> 00:12:52,429 can potentially associate with uh with outcome uh uh uh uh a lo in advance, 176 00:12:52,440 --> 00:12:58,359 meaning that uh they're gonna have a weak association uh with a response to those medications. 177 00:12:58,369 --> 00:13:09,609 So there is a necessity in immunology to combine multiple genetic polymorphism together in order to achieve uh some uh performances characteristics that will make uh you know, 178 00:13:09,619 --> 00:13:09,859 the, 179 00:13:09,869 --> 00:13:10,380 the, 180 00:13:10,390 --> 00:13:10,520 the, 181 00:13:10,530 --> 00:13:13,219 the clinician uh you know, 182 00:13:13,419 --> 00:13:15,619 uh order the test and most importantly, 183 00:13:15,630 --> 00:13:15,840 the, 184 00:13:15,849 --> 00:13:16,179 the, 185 00:13:16,190 --> 00:13:17,739 the payer to pay for the test. 186 00:13:17,750 --> 00:13:20,469 So this field has been uh you know, 187 00:13:20,479 --> 00:13:20,679 is, 188 00:13:20,690 --> 00:13:21,705 is moving for, 189 00:13:21,715 --> 00:13:21,994 you know, 190 00:13:22,005 --> 00:13:24,575 there are some tests that are being developed right now. 191 00:13:24,924 --> 00:13:39,034 But the biggest challenge is to be able to achieve again the the threshold of uh of performance that makes the test is variable enough uh to be uh again ordered by the clinician and the utilize uh to the benefit of the patient. 192 00:13:39,659 --> 00:13:41,200 I couldn't agree with you more. 193 00:13:41,210 --> 00:13:53,489 Um I've worked on the payer side or market access side of pharmacogenomics and even uh with a box test for which there's um a lot of research data available, 194 00:13:53,500 --> 00:13:55,119 even with those, 195 00:13:55,130 --> 00:13:59,760 it's sometimes difficult uh to get payers um to see the value. 196 00:13:59,770 --> 00:14:01,640 So I absolutely agree with you. 197 00:14:01,940 --> 00:14:03,679 Um The fact that you guys are, 198 00:14:03,690 --> 00:14:11,789 are uh investing in producing the data necessary says a lot about your laboratory. 199 00:14:11,979 --> 00:14:12,559 Um you know, 200 00:14:12,570 --> 00:14:15,380 and how committed you are to this testing and, 201 00:14:15,390 --> 00:14:17,320 and how you believe in the testing. 202 00:14:18,039 --> 00:14:23,640 So I just want to make sure that our audience recognizes that, 203 00:14:24,359 --> 00:14:24,619 you know, 204 00:14:24,630 --> 00:14:31,820 Prometheus doesn't simply provide tests to determine if drugs for IBD will be effective and safe. 205 00:14:32,190 --> 00:14:36,900 Um And maybe what the dose of the drug should be for the patient, 206 00:14:36,909 --> 00:14:40,219 but you have that whole suite of tests. 207 00:14:40,229 --> 00:14:47,380 Um the diagnostic test for the differential diagnosis all the way through remission. 208 00:14:48,030 --> 00:14:53,390 So can you elaborate you elaborated on it some in the previous question? 209 00:14:53,400 --> 00:15:01,229 But um can you tell us the difference between how you had to actually develop the test? 210 00:15:01,520 --> 00:15:02,530 Um You didn't, 211 00:15:02,539 --> 00:15:03,059 in other words, 212 00:15:03,070 --> 00:15:10,659 purchase a test from another manufacturer with the biomarkers that you include in your testing. 213 00:15:10,669 --> 00:15:16,830 Can you elaborate on how much more difficult it is to to develop a test from scratch? 214 00:15:18,169 --> 00:15:18,320 Yeah, 215 00:15:18,330 --> 00:15:18,659 sure. 216 00:15:18,669 --> 00:15:18,809 I mean, 217 00:15:18,820 --> 00:15:22,070 this is this is challenging for multiple and first of all, 218 00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:23,130 you need to have the, 219 00:15:23,419 --> 00:15:27,450 you need to have a clinical data set available with specimen available. 220 00:15:27,460 --> 00:15:28,159 Uh you know, 221 00:15:28,169 --> 00:15:28,780 in front, 222 00:15:28,859 --> 00:15:29,770 obviously, 223 00:15:29,859 --> 00:15:30,890 available. 224 00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:35,890 Uh So we are leveraging a pro meters a large bi bank of specimen. 225 00:15:36,299 --> 00:15:37,190 Uh as I said, 226 00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:39,719 Prometheus has been founded 25 years ago. 227 00:15:39,729 --> 00:15:40,599 So over the, 228 00:15:40,760 --> 00:15:41,919 the past two decades, 229 00:15:41,929 --> 00:15:54,849 we have been able to assemble a large uh substrate of data and specimen which we are uh uh using to uh uh establish our proof of concept if you will. 230 00:15:54,859 --> 00:16:07,559 And then when we have uh identify some genetic polymorphism that are uh adequately uh associated with uh uh disease outcome and disease progression as well as uh toxicity. 231 00:16:07,969 --> 00:16:11,469 Then we are entering validation phase where we are uh you know, 232 00:16:11,570 --> 00:16:14,789 using validation cohorts where we are again, 233 00:16:14,969 --> 00:16:22,630 combining multiple modalities together uh patient demographic as well as genetic marker together with theological marker. 234 00:16:22,640 --> 00:16:23,190 Actually, 235 00:16:23,500 --> 00:16:27,419 to come up with some Multivariate models that are uh again, 236 00:16:27,429 --> 00:16:39,250 bringing the performances characteristics of the pharmacogenomic test or its combination with our marker to the level where it's supposed to be in the first place to meet uh uh payer. 237 00:16:39,650 --> 00:16:41,190 And uh obviously, 238 00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:41,760 again, 239 00:16:41,770 --> 00:16:45,320 the patient uh to the benefit of the patient and to, 240 00:16:45,330 --> 00:16:46,619 to improve its outcome, 241 00:16:46,739 --> 00:16:47,429 the outcome. 242 00:16:48,340 --> 00:16:53,380 I think what you're describing really is the future of pharmacogenomics. 243 00:16:53,390 --> 00:16:54,599 Um In other words, 244 00:16:54,609 --> 00:17:03,419 not singing out pharmacogenomics as you know the end all and be all in the treatment paradigm. 245 00:17:03,559 --> 00:17:08,040 But using a PGX test in combination with, 246 00:17:08,050 --> 00:17:09,069 like you mentioned, 247 00:17:09,250 --> 00:17:11,160 other serological tests, 248 00:17:11,170 --> 00:17:12,959 maybe other genetic tests. 249 00:17:13,290 --> 00:17:14,890 Um But you know, 250 00:17:14,900 --> 00:17:25,869 I think what we want our audience to really wrap their heads around is that PGX is just a piece of that larger puzzle um from diagnosis to treatment to, 251 00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:26,910 to remission. 252 00:17:27,239 --> 00:17:29,880 So I think you guys are absolutely, 253 00:17:29,890 --> 00:17:31,579 you're already in the future. 254 00:17:31,589 --> 00:17:32,849 In other words, 255 00:17:32,859 --> 00:17:33,130 you know, 256 00:17:33,140 --> 00:17:39,689 you're already providing all these different uh tests um like you mentioned to, 257 00:17:39,699 --> 00:17:44,310 to facilitate from diagnosis to remission to remission. 258 00:17:44,660 --> 00:17:45,520 That's correct. 259 00:17:45,530 --> 00:17:45,829 Yeah. 260 00:17:46,349 --> 00:17:55,089 So um you've given us so much great information about uh the tests that that you guys offer. 261 00:17:55,329 --> 00:18:02,060 Can you explain to our audience um your newest test? 262 00:18:02,069 --> 00:18:03,859 Uh the responder test. 263 00:18:04,150 --> 00:18:12,979 And um what role it will play in the paradigm from the diagnosis of IBD to remission? 264 00:18:14,050 --> 00:18:14,260 Yeah, 265 00:18:14,270 --> 00:18:14,760 sure. 266 00:18:14,770 --> 00:18:15,569 So we, 267 00:18:15,579 --> 00:18:18,069 we are doing things a little bit different than other. 268 00:18:18,079 --> 00:18:19,489 We do believe that uh you know, 269 00:18:19,500 --> 00:18:21,449 the it has to be simple. 270 00:18:21,459 --> 00:18:24,189 Uh uh We can obviously construct some very, 271 00:18:24,199 --> 00:18:33,530 very complex algorithm and there are some tests that do that with a very sophisticated machine learning based tools that are available using neural networks, 272 00:18:33,540 --> 00:18:33,729 you know, 273 00:18:33,739 --> 00:18:34,790 those sorts of things. 274 00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:39,729 But we have taken on a different approach where with the responder test, 275 00:18:39,739 --> 00:18:40,329 we are basically, 276 00:18:40,339 --> 00:18:45,160 we are taking an approach which is very simple to address the first and foremost. 277 00:18:45,170 --> 00:18:53,020 Most important aspect of responding uh predicting response to uh to medication is the pharmacokinetics. 278 00:18:53,280 --> 00:19:03,250 Uh You cannot be responding to a drug if the drug is not given and you obviously cannot respond to a drug if the drug is not metabolized adequately. 279 00:19:03,359 --> 00:19:06,349 And this is what we are doing with the responder test. 280 00:19:06,579 --> 00:19:09,010 We are addressing some uh uh you know, 281 00:19:09,020 --> 00:19:11,630 fundamental issues with those uh biologist, 282 00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:12,410 for example, 283 00:19:12,660 --> 00:19:15,170 uh the anti tumor necrosis factors. 284 00:19:15,180 --> 00:19:15,650 So, 285 00:19:15,750 --> 00:19:19,199 such as uh Infliximab and Adalimumab, 286 00:19:19,209 --> 00:19:23,050 it is well known uh that uh uh those drugs, 287 00:19:23,060 --> 00:19:25,689 first of all are prone to immunization. 288 00:19:25,989 --> 00:19:36,949 Uh Meaning that uh uh the drug itself uh is recognized by the immune system uh and digested by the antigen presenting cells. 289 00:19:36,959 --> 00:19:42,209 If you will uh where you gonna have uh uh an immune uh uh response, 290 00:19:42,380 --> 00:19:56,979 uh mounted a cancer drug to produce uh immunogen that will severely impact its pharmacokinetics where the labels will be inadequate to produce uh the desired uh anti-inflammatory effects. 291 00:19:56,989 --> 00:19:57,150 So, 292 00:19:57,160 --> 00:19:58,890 we are with the risk conductors, 293 00:19:58,900 --> 00:20:01,040 we are combining two things together. 294 00:20:01,189 --> 00:20:07,959 First of all is the genetic test itself which uh predicts the risk of immun immunization. 295 00:20:07,969 --> 00:20:18,010 The name of the test is on HL A uh DQ A 105 ali uh that uh uh promotes the presentation of the, 296 00:20:18,020 --> 00:20:19,130 of the, 297 00:20:19,140 --> 00:20:19,910 of Infliximab, 298 00:20:20,010 --> 00:20:20,750 for example, 299 00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:32,130 to the T cell repertoire in order to uh promote the Ronon expansion and the formation of the anti antibodies together with uh another dimension which is the clearance, 300 00:20:32,140 --> 00:20:33,670 which is as important. 301 00:20:33,949 --> 00:20:36,209 Uh One of the key issue is the, 302 00:20:36,219 --> 00:20:36,770 the, 303 00:20:36,780 --> 00:20:41,239 the monoclonal antibodies and uh such as Infliximab or Adalimumab. 304 00:20:41,329 --> 00:20:42,280 But in fact, 305 00:20:42,290 --> 00:20:45,890 a neon antibodies that those drugs are uh you know, 306 00:20:45,900 --> 00:20:49,010 cleared and consumed uh from the, 307 00:20:49,020 --> 00:20:50,949 from the central compartment if you will, 308 00:20:50,959 --> 00:20:54,520 since we are doing a little bit of uh uh pharmacokinetics here. 309 00:20:54,530 --> 00:20:56,020 And uh uh you know, 310 00:20:56,030 --> 00:21:06,670 if the patient present who is uh a high degree of inflammatory burden is gonna have uh the patient will have a high clearance and that's gonna worsen uh in the, 311 00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:13,939 in the presence again of the HL AD Q A 105 genetic marker that uh associate with uh immunization. 312 00:21:13,949 --> 00:21:16,859 So I but this is a combination of both, 313 00:21:17,199 --> 00:21:19,359 these are the predictive factors of pharmacokinetic, 314 00:21:20,359 --> 00:21:38,209 which we combine together where the patient presenting with a risk of immunization as well as accelerated clearance due to the fact that the patient has high inflammation or due to the fact that they are so intrinsic pharmacokinetic properties that makes that the patient, 315 00:21:38,219 --> 00:21:38,300 you know, 316 00:21:38,310 --> 00:21:39,479 will clear the drug very, 317 00:21:39,489 --> 00:21:40,260 very fast. 318 00:21:40,560 --> 00:21:41,670 For example, 319 00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:46,819 due to the inefficient uh recirculation of the drug itself with the new, 320 00:21:46,869 --> 00:21:46,930 the, 321 00:21:46,939 --> 00:21:50,599 the the in the reticular on the system. 322 00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:51,619 Together, 323 00:21:51,630 --> 00:22:02,109 those patients presenting with uh uh together these uh poor prognostic factor of pharmacokinetic origin will tend to be severely underdose, 324 00:22:02,380 --> 00:22:06,719 will not be responding to the drug uh adequately as and they, 325 00:22:06,729 --> 00:22:10,719 and they probably should in the first place if you are able to address uh you know, 326 00:22:10,729 --> 00:22:12,270 the the the exposure. 327 00:22:12,439 --> 00:22:14,079 So what we do with this test, 328 00:22:14,089 --> 00:22:21,640 we will be able to inform uh the clinic that the patient is at risk of achieving, 329 00:22:21,650 --> 00:22:30,829 of achieving suboptimal pharmacokinetics and therefore being able to adjust the dose uh uh to start with more adequately. 330 00:22:30,839 --> 00:22:38,650 So that the the the proper uh exposure is achieved uh during induction to again to, 331 00:22:38,660 --> 00:22:39,040 to, 332 00:22:39,050 --> 00:22:39,380 to, 333 00:22:39,390 --> 00:22:40,890 to achieve a better outcome. 334 00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:47,270 And I think the pharmacist will have a very important role to play here in terms of absolutely, 335 00:22:47,280 --> 00:22:51,239 that information is priceless in the management of these medications. 336 00:22:51,250 --> 00:22:54,930 So thanks for elaborating on that. 337 00:22:56,010 --> 00:22:59,040 And if I may add in our previous conversation, 338 00:22:59,050 --> 00:23:00,810 uh before the recording of podcast, 339 00:23:00,819 --> 00:23:08,869 we had discussed um you guys' robust platform for collaborating with payers to obtain market access and reimbursements for the test. 340 00:23:09,109 --> 00:23:14,109 But without stealing the Thunder from uh Prometheus market access and reimbursement team, 341 00:23:14,199 --> 00:23:22,619 can you please uh briefly detail how Prometheus has proactively worked with payers to solve the problem. 342 00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:27,349 Um the population health problem by building the evidence payers want, 343 00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:41,170 want to see um about your test before you go to the market and then build the test and then hope the payers will see the value and the result and then that will improve the market access and reimbursement for your um precision medicine test. 344 00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:42,339 Yeah. 345 00:23:42,349 --> 00:23:43,180 So briefly I can, 346 00:23:43,189 --> 00:23:43,579 I'm, 347 00:23:43,589 --> 00:23:46,619 I'm probably not the right person to answer that question. 348 00:23:46,630 --> 00:23:47,369 We have a very, 349 00:23:47,380 --> 00:23:52,400 very efficient market access group uh uh pro meters that does a splendid job. 350 00:23:52,410 --> 00:23:59,780 But uh uh uh what I can tell you that we have an evidence uh uh development plan in place where we, 351 00:23:59,790 --> 00:24:14,000 we are establishing the clinical utility of our testing solution by demonstrating uh the payer value uh with respect of uh patient management and uh uh and the, 352 00:24:14,010 --> 00:24:16,630 and the impact of our technology on the, 353 00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:18,119 on physician behavior. 354 00:24:18,430 --> 00:24:21,319 Uh We have uh uh already uh you know, 355 00:24:21,329 --> 00:24:25,160 commercialized uh two of those tests for which we have initiated, 356 00:24:25,170 --> 00:24:29,040 initiated the Power studies uh that uh uh you know, 357 00:24:29,050 --> 00:24:32,000 already provide uh you know, 358 00:24:32,104 --> 00:24:34,484 differentiated and the value to, 359 00:24:34,494 --> 00:24:35,915 to the payer where we are, 360 00:24:35,925 --> 00:24:36,025 the, 361 00:24:36,035 --> 00:24:46,005 the clinicians are basically using our technology to make treatment decision uh as well as uh some prospective clinicality study which we are initiating, 362 00:24:46,145 --> 00:24:47,555 initiating to. 363 00:24:47,564 --> 00:24:48,574 Um uh again, 364 00:24:48,584 --> 00:24:49,425 demonstrate the, 365 00:24:49,435 --> 00:24:49,915 the, 366 00:24:49,925 --> 00:24:50,244 the, 367 00:24:50,255 --> 00:24:53,594 the payer value you uh uh we can certainly follow up with, 368 00:24:53,604 --> 00:24:58,755 uh you can certainly follow up with our market access group uh uh as appropriate there. 369 00:24:58,765 --> 00:25:00,765 Uh They can fill you with more information. 370 00:25:01,349 --> 00:25:01,589 No, 371 00:25:01,599 --> 00:25:02,520 that totally makes sense. 372 00:25:02,530 --> 00:25:03,310 That totally makes sense. 373 00:25:03,319 --> 00:25:10,890 But um we're excited that you're also farm d So how did you get to this role of outside the box path? 374 00:25:10,900 --> 00:25:11,550 There? 375 00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:17,530 There may be a pharmacist student or pharmacist wanting to switch or transition into a role such as yours, 376 00:25:17,540 --> 00:25:19,609 which is a Chief Scientific Officer. 377 00:25:19,619 --> 00:25:20,609 I want to learn more. 378 00:25:20,619 --> 00:25:23,920 So how would you um can you talk a little bit about that? 379 00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:24,780 Well, 380 00:25:24,790 --> 00:25:26,270 we are clinical laboratories. 381 00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:29,400 So in order to uh uh to be in my role, 382 00:25:29,410 --> 00:25:34,020 you need to have uh uh you need to have expertise in clinical laboratory science. 383 00:25:34,030 --> 00:25:36,140 So for the students is basically, 384 00:25:36,150 --> 00:25:36,300 you know, 385 00:25:36,310 --> 00:25:40,770 to do the family degree and then complete the family degree with uh a doctorate, 386 00:25:40,780 --> 00:25:40,930 you know, 387 00:25:40,939 --> 00:25:44,260 which is uh focus on clinical laboratory science. 388 00:25:44,270 --> 00:25:46,079 So you can achieve uh uh you know, 389 00:25:46,089 --> 00:25:47,640 the all the elements you need to be, 390 00:25:47,650 --> 00:25:48,219 for example, 391 00:25:48,229 --> 00:25:53,189 board certified uh as uh as as medical laboratory director. 392 00:25:53,199 --> 00:25:55,160 So you can uh uh so, 393 00:25:55,170 --> 00:25:55,589 uh yeah, 394 00:25:55,599 --> 00:25:56,030 this is, 395 00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:56,400 this is, 396 00:25:56,410 --> 00:25:57,209 this is uh you know, 397 00:25:57,219 --> 00:25:59,160 a great opportunity I think for pharmacies, 398 00:25:59,170 --> 00:26:10,800 there is an absolute need to uh have the clinical pharmacist provide uh uh drug information to healthcare professional as well as uh assist patient with the monitoring of their disease, 399 00:26:10,810 --> 00:26:15,229 the effectiveness of the therapy and um and uh you know, 400 00:26:15,239 --> 00:26:16,060 monitoring the, 401 00:26:16,069 --> 00:26:20,969 the side effect and the toxicity from uh from those uh those medication. 402 00:26:24,650 --> 00:26:24,959 Well, 403 00:26:24,969 --> 00:26:32,119 the I know our audience is going to have uh additional questions for you. 404 00:26:32,130 --> 00:26:32,540 I mean, 405 00:26:32,989 --> 00:26:35,609 you've provided them with so much great information, 406 00:26:35,619 --> 00:26:44,959 but it's only the beginning of what they could possibly learn um about um the testing that you do for IBD and, 407 00:26:44,969 --> 00:26:46,729 and even your career path. 408 00:26:47,050 --> 00:26:47,530 So, 409 00:26:47,540 --> 00:26:49,300 if you wouldn't mind telling us, 410 00:26:49,310 --> 00:26:51,359 um because we have to wrap up, 411 00:26:51,369 --> 00:26:52,670 unfortunately, 412 00:26:53,150 --> 00:26:55,810 this episode of the podcast, 413 00:26:55,819 --> 00:27:00,250 uh could you tell us how our audience members might be able to contact you directly. 414 00:27:01,260 --> 00:27:01,449 Yeah, 415 00:27:01,459 --> 00:27:07,079 I can be contacted on my uh on my email at TT W at como slab dot com. 416 00:27:07,949 --> 00:27:08,810 All right. 417 00:27:09,069 --> 00:27:09,300 Well, 418 00:27:09,310 --> 00:27:14,290 thank you again so much uh for joining us on this episode. 419 00:27:14,300 --> 00:27:15,290 We really, 420 00:27:15,300 --> 00:27:29,530 really hope that our listeners um ideas of not only what PGX can be but how PGX can be utilized in a comprehensive testing suite. 421 00:27:29,709 --> 00:27:35,670 We really hope that our a our audience will um listen in and learn this information. 422 00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:37,869 Um And to our audience, 423 00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:39,439 thank you for tuning in. 424 00:27:39,449 --> 00:27:42,619 We really hope that you've learned from this episode. 425 00:27:43,130 --> 00:27:46,339 Uh We do a whole lot of PG Xing here on this podcast. 426 00:27:46,349 --> 00:27:48,380 We talk about PGX Science, 427 00:27:48,390 --> 00:27:52,030 clinical application and the business of PGX. 428 00:27:52,260 --> 00:27:54,880 So we'd love to hear about from you. 429 00:27:55,099 --> 00:27:56,479 I love to hear from you. 430 00:27:56,489 --> 00:27:58,439 Um What can we teach you? 431 00:27:58,449 --> 00:28:00,920 What more can we teach you through our podcast? 432 00:28:00,930 --> 00:28:12,349 So please drop us a message on linkedin and let us know and please share this link to this podcast link episode with everyone so they can tune in and listen to the PGX for promises podcast. 433 00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:15,369 Leave us a review on Apple podcast or Spotify. 434 00:28:15,459 --> 00:28:18,130 And you can also visit us on PGX four, 435 00:28:18,140 --> 00:28:22,989 the number four Rx dot com to listen to all our other episodes. 436 00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:23,079 Well, 437 00:28:23,089 --> 00:28:23,790 thank you. 438 00:28:24,199 --> 00:28:28,750 Thanks for your interest in PGX and for spending some time with us. 439 00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:35,670 Please share this podcast and leave us a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify for all of our episodes. 440 00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:39,390 Please visit PGX four Rx dot com. 441 00:28:39,569 --> 00:28:43,380 That's PGX four Rx dot com.  

Thank you for joining us for our 2nd Cabral HouseCall of the weekend! I'm looking forward to sharing with you some of our community's questions that have come in over the past few weeks…   Shelley: Hi Dr. Cabral. I love you and your work. Thank you. My question is about my daughter who was diagnosed with JRA at the age of 13. She has been on various meds and is currently on Humira to control her symptoms. She has had a positive ANA test and a Centromere B ab of 1.4 which is high. Her doctor is concerned about CREST among other things. She also has had Myastenia Gravis. All serious auto immune diseases. She tries to be gluten free and careful with her diet but as an 18 year old going to college, I am concerned. What advice might you have to get control of this auto immune nightmare? Thank you for all you do.   Lindsey: hi dr. cabral! thank you for this podcast and all of your knowledge. i have 2 questions for you — 1.i run a body fever most nights. i notice it significantly when i lay down to go to sleep and my partner says i'm literally radiating heat. i suspect my body is trying to fight off something - what do you suggest as a first step in finding the root cause?2. my heart races/gets faster after meals (whether it be healthy or unhealthy food). can you help?thank you Tiffany: Ive listened to your podcast for 10 yrs & am grateful for your passion your knowledge & helping people. Question: An older friend of mine had to have emergency surgery to remove a non cancerous infected mass from her bowl & has been on a constant antibiotic drip for 2 wks. The I.V. was just removed & she is home w/a drainage bag still attached outside of her body to help rid the infection. When I found this out, I immediately ordered for her the Clean Gut Pros, Saccharomysis Boulardii & a 7 day detox. I was also able to talk her into The Big 5, to get the root cause. She then mentioned she also has Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. I tried to research your podcasts for info on this with no luck. Lab results will soon reveal but want any advice on CML to be in your podcasts. Much appreciated! Mandy: Hi doctor Cabral, I've been following your work, and listening to your podcast for years, and it has truly changed by health for better, so I'm eternally grateful. I have a question about my parents: they are both in their mid-70s and I want to keep them as healthy as possible. What are some essential supplements that they should definitely be using? They are not on anything now. They both eat pretty healthy and walk around 20K steps a day. Thanks so much for your advice! Erika: Breast question (I have a dr appointment next week and i know it will be weeks until you get to this but that's okay, would love your opinion)….we did a lot of hiking in the mountains 2 weeks ago and i had a backpack on. After the 5th day, at the end of the day i noticed one breast on the underside looked bruised or like the veins were widened and very visible. I've never had this before…. The blue color will be very light in the morning but after exercising it's back darker again. And only on the underside of the boob.Any idea what is happening?   Thank you for tuning into this weekend's Cabral HouseCalls and be sure to check back tomorrow for our Mindset & Motivation Monday show to get your week started off right! - - - Show Notes and Resources: StephenCabral.com/2816 - - - Get a FREE Copy of Dr. Cabral's Book: The Rain Barrel Effect - - - Join the Community & Get Your Questions Answered: CabralSupportGroup.com - - - Dr. Cabral's Most Popular At-Home Lab Tests: > Complete Minerals & Metals Test (Test for mineral imbalances & heavy metal toxicity) - - - > Complete Candida, Metabolic & Vitamins Test (Test for 75 biomarkers including yeast & bacterial gut overgrowth, as well as vitamin levels) - - - > Complete Stress, Mood & Metabolism Test (Discover your complete thyroid, adrenal, hormone, vitamin D & insulin levels) - - - > Complete Food Sensitivity Test (Find out your hidden food sensitivities) - - - > Complete Omega-3 & Inflammation Test (Discover your levels of inflammation related to your omega-6 to omega-3 levels) - - - Get Your Question Answered On An Upcoming HouseCall: StephenCabral.com/askcabral - - - Would You Take 30 Seconds To Rate & Review The Cabral Concept? The best way to help me spread our mission of true natural health is to pass on the good word, and I read and appreciate every review!  

To learn more about working with me and to get a free call and digestion training, go to: www.bit.ly/gutcall Or, call us now at 586-685-2222

This episode is special. When we heard that widely-beloved writer John Green was rallying his online community around a fight over drug prices — and apparently making a difference — we were pumped. And this story took us in so many different directions: Literally around the world, and then straight back home.The drug in question is bedaquiline, made by Johnson & Johnson. It treats drug-resistant tuberculosis, and its price has been a huge obstacle to getting it to places it's needed most — primarily places far away from the U.S.But the reason this TB drug costs so much overseas is also one of the main reasons that important drugs here are so expensive — drugs like insulin, Humira and… well, just about everything: Legalistic patent games that pharma companies have mastered. So, in addition to John Green — and yes, we talked with John Green — we also talked with one of the world's leading experts on drug-patent games, Tahir Amin.Also, John Green is a great storyteller. So hearing him tell the story of how he became obsessed with tuberculosis is bittersweet.And in order to make sense of any of this, we had to dig into the story of how John Green and his brother Hank became (and remain) YouTube superstars. For more than 16 years, they've been building a community of “nerdfighters” — nerds fighting to make the world a better place. It's a profoundly sweet and fun story, and everything we're trying to do here owes them a debt. Oh, finally: This is, as you're probably guessing by now, an epic story. It's gonna take two full episodes of An Arm and a Leg to tell it all. So, we hope you enjoy part one. There's more coming in a few weeks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast, Dr. Berg talks about the Humira alternative. Humira is an anti-inflammatory blockbuster and a top-selling prescription drug.

After decades of patent protection, the wildly successful arthritis and autoimmune drug Humira is finally facing competition. WSJ's Jared Hopkins on what that could mean for patients and the drug industry. Further Reading: - Blockbuster Arthritis Drug Humira Faces Competition From First Lower-Price Copycat in U.S.  - AbbVie Aims for New Drugs to Boost Sales as Competitors Target Humira  Further Listening: - How Big Pharma Lost Its Swagger  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A.M. Edition for Feb. 1. One of America's biggest-selling prescription drugs, AbbVie's arthritis therapy Humira, is now facing its first competition in the U.S. in the form of a near-identical treatment from Amgen. WSJ health business editor Jonathan Rockoff explains how “biosimilar” drugs work and their potential to drive down prices for insurers and patients. Plus, why Ukraine hasn't been a boon to U.S. defense companies. Luke Vargas hosts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices