Xtalks Life Science Podcast

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Soumya Shashikumar speaks with Anne-Cécile Chevrier, Global Head, Injectable Aesthetics at Galderma, about the science of skin quality and why the field is increasingly looking at “skin longevity” — keeping skin healthier, more functional and resilient for longer. Anne-Cécile explains that skin quality is about how skin looks, feels a...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Dr. Mohammad Ali speaks with Mike McCormick, President and CEO of Nuwellis, about fluid overload, the heart-kidney connection and what happens when diuretics stop working as expected. Mike explains that fluid overload is “not simply a cosmetic swelling.” Persistent congestion can make breathing difficult, reduce appetite and even make...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Dr. Mohammad Ali speaks with James Hackworth, PhD, Cebranopadol Development Lead at Tris Pharma, about the clinical challenges of providing effective acute pain relief while limiting the treatment-related risks of traditional opioids. James explains that when severe pain is poorly treated, prolonged pain signaling can, in some cases,...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Dr. Mohammad Ali, Life Science Writer and Knowledge Translation Specialist at Xtalks, spoke with Dr. Farideh Bischoff, Chief Medical Officer at HerAnova Lifesciences, about the challenges of diagnosing endometriosis and research into non-invasive testing. Dr. Bischoff explains that symptom severity does not always reflect disease exte...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Soumya Shashikumar, Senior Life Sciences Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with James Mackay, CEO of Crystalys Therapeutics, about gout, persistent misconceptions surrounding the condition and current clinical research. Gout is often linked primarily to diet and alcohol. James explains that many patients instead have difficulty removing eno...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Soumya Shashikumar, Senior Life Sciences Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Dr. Kia Motesharei, President and Chief Operating Officer of ReAlta Life Sciences, about hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) and efforts to develop treatments beyond therapeutic hypothermia. HIE is a serious neonatal brain injury caused by insufficient oxygen...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Vera Kovacevic, Editor-in-Chief at Xtalks, spoke with Dr. Tanya Petrossian, CEO and Founder of EndoCyclic Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing a non-hormonal therapeutic approach for endometriosis. Endometriosis affects many women, but it is still often difficult to diagnose, treat and fully understand. For many patien...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Vera Kovacevic, Editor-in-Chief at Xtalks, spoke with two experts from Boehringer Ingelheim: Itziar Canamasas, PhD, Global Head of Oncology and Senior Vice President, and Volker Teichgräber, MD, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Experimental Medicine Oncology. The conversation focused on how precision oncology is changing the w...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Vera Kovacevic, Editor-in-Chief at Xtalks, spoke with Diego Ardigò, Executive Vice President, Global R&D at Chiesi, a biopharma company focused on respiratory health, rare diseases and specialty care. Respiratory medicine presents unique drug development challenges because successful therapies depend not only on the drug itself, b...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Vera Kovacevic, Editor-in-Chief at Xtalks, spoke with Hyung Heon Kim, CEO of MetaVia, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing treatments for cardiometabolic diseases. Mr. Kim discusses the evolving cardiometabolic disease landscape, including the connections between obesity, diabetes, liver disease and cardiovascular risk. H...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Awny Farajallah, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Takeda, about the growing role of real-world evidence in improving clinical trial inclusivity and diversity. Also hear Dr. Farajallah discuss innovations in diseases such as narcolepsy type 1 and polycythemia vera, and how...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Lance Alstodt, CEO, BioRestorative & Francisco Silva, Chief Scientist & VP, R&D, BioRestorative Inc. (NASDAQ:BRTX), a regenerative medicine company developing stem cell-based therapies and products. The company’s clinical programs target critical healthcar...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Alessio Travaglia, PhD, Neuroscientist and Director of Translational Science at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) . New findings from a study published in Nature Medicine suggest that a single blood test may be able to predict the onset of Al...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke Rick Pauls, President and CEO of DiaMedica Therapeutics (Nasdaq: DMAC), a company advancing multiple programs in challenging vascular conditions driven by ischemia, including preeclampsia (PE), fetal growth restriction (FGR) and acute ischemic stroke (AIS). DiaMedica’s the...

In this special episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, part of our Breakthrough with Dr. Corey Stanton series, host Dr. Corey Stanton speaks with Neal Dunkinson, Sr. Director of Solution Sales at Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), about why copyright and licensing are becoming mission-critical in modern life sciences research, particularly in the era of AI. Life sciences teams both generate an...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Dave Rosa, CEO, NeuroOne Medical Technologies Corporation, a company developing minimally invasive diagnostic and therapeutic electrodes employed in nerve ablation as well as neuromodulation devices to treat conditions such as epilepsy and chronic pain and enable drug...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Kevin Caldwell, CEO, Co-Founder & President of Ossium Health, a biotechnology company advancing the first off-the-shelf bone marrow therapy derived from deceased organ donors. The treatment is designed to address longstanding clinical and logistical challenges in...

In this episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, part of the Breakthrough with Dr. Corey Stanton series, host Dr. Corey Stanton sits down with Dr. Omar Wahab, Vice President of Bioprocessing at Lonza, to explore the increasingly strategic role of cell culture media in enabling scalable biologics manufacturing. As biologics pipelines continue to expand across therapeutic areas such as oncology,...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Alex Yang, JD, LLM, CEO of Polaryx , a company focused on developing disease-modifying small molecule therapies for rare, pediatric lysosomal storage disorders. Alex is a biotech executive and investor with over 25 years of experience spanning law, private equity, cro...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Steve Levine, MD, Chief Patient Officer at Compass Pathways, a biotechnology company dedicated to accelerating patient access to evidence-based innovation in mental health. One of the areas that Compass Pathways is working in is the development of psilocybin-based tre...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Tania Nayak Kamphaus, PhD, Associate VP of Science Partnerships at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH). In December 2025, the FDA qualified bone density DXA scans as the first surrogate endpoint for bone fractures in clinical trials of anti-ost...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Kim Moran, PhD, Senior Vice President & Head, Rare Diseases US, UCB, a company focused on neurological and immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, as well as developing therapies for rare genetic disorders such as the mitochondrial disease thymidine kinase 2 defici...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Andrea Wilkinson, Global Head of Patient Engagement & Advocacy, Epilepsy & Neuromuscular at UCB, a company dedicated to developing solutions for autoimmune and neurological conditions, including epilepsy. The company has a growing commitment to addressing unme...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Joseph Sinkule, CEO, Founder and the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Klotho Neurosciences , a biogenetics company developing cell and gene therapies using a patented, secreted form of the “anti-aging” human α-Klotho gene for the treatment of neurodegenerative, a...

In this week’s episode of the Xtalks Life Science Podcast, host Ayesha Rashid, Senior Life Science Journalist at Xtalks, spoke with Ahmed Enayetallah, PhD, MBBCh, Chief Development Officer at Dompé Farmaceutici , a company founded as the first compounding pharmacy in Milan, Italy, which has grown into a global biopharmaceutical company over 130 years. Currently, the company has a therapeutic pipel...