The Bio Report

Insilico Medicine is working to harness artificial intelligence to address diseases of aging and in the process reinvent the way new drugs are discovered and developed. Its AI platform is integrated into the continuum of the discovery and development process and seeks to improve target identification, the selection of drug candidates, and predict clinical trial outcomes. In addition to working in...

Digital health technologies are providing new ways of monitoring patients and delivering care. In the realm of clinical trials, they provide a way to remove geographic barriers to patient participation, improve compliance, and reduce costs while also creating a way to capture real-world data. We spoke Bryan Silverman, CEO of ObvioHealth, about the company’s ClamiIt platform, the workings of sitele...

The convergence of artificial intelligence and the life sciences is promising to revolutionize the entire healthcare continuum including the way drugs are discovered, how clinical trials are conducted, the methods physicians use to diagnose patients, and how patients are monitored and treated. The life sciences investment firm Foresite Capital, armed with a new $668 million fund, is helping to bri...

In this encore edition of The Bio Report, we revisit an interview that original ran in December 2017. Climate change and the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events carry a toll on human health. Not only do floods, hurricanes, and other similar phenomenon cause death and injury, they also create long-term health effects. Jesse Bell, a research scientist at the North Carolina I...

One of the reasons for the high cost of drug development is that most drugs fail in clinical development. Even though preclinical testing can provide a good insight into whether a drug hits an intended target, once in the body, drugs can interact with a large number of proteins and have unintended consequences. A-Alpha Bio, a spinout from the University of Washington's Institute for Protein Design...

Stem cell therapies represent an area of great promise for treating intractable eye diseases, but there’s growing concern about clinics that promote costly stem cell treatments that have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and have not been proven to be safe or effective. This is already a multi-billion business and researchers have found some disturbing practices that have...

Say “Oklahoma” and someone might think of wheat fields, natural gas, or the wind sweepin' down the plain. Cutting edge biomedical research, though, is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Nevertheless, the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation has for more than 70 years been conducting innovative scientific work that has forged new understandings of disease and made discoveries that hav...

Recursion Pharmaceuticals is reinventing the drug discovery process by turning biology into a data science problem. The company has set an audacious goal for itself of developing 100 drugs in 10 years. Though Recursion initially focused on repurposing existing drugs to treat rare diseases, it has expanded its work into new disease areas and is looking at new chemical entities as well. We spoke to...

The blood-brain barrier provides essential protection against pathogens while allowing needed oxygen and nutrients to pass. However, one challenge it presents is getting therapeutics delivered to the brain and central nervous system. Bioasis Technologies has developed a way to attach fusion proteins to drugs to allow them to pass the blood-brain barrier. We spoke to Mark Day, CEO of Bioasis, about...

There’s been much made of the potential of the microbiome to address disease and promote wellness. While much of the therapeutic efforts in this area have focused on the microbiome of the gut, Azitra has developed a platform for selecting bacteria native to the skin and engineering it to produce therapeutic proteins. We spoke to Travis Whitfill, chief science officer of Azitra, about the company’s...

Incubators and accelerators come in many flavors. Mass Innovation Labs is seeking to distinguish itself with its approach to providing research scientists with infrastructure comparable to what a discovery and development team might have at a mature pharmaceutical company. We spoke to Amrit Chaudhuri, CEO of Mass Innovation Labs, about what it does to accelerate the movement of its client companie...

Intrexon has been at the forefront of efforts to harness biotechnology to address significant issues in health, energy, food, and environmental sustainability. The company is applying synthetic biology to a wide range of applications from halting the spread of mosquito-borne disease to preventing apples from browning. We spoke to Tom Schrader, vice president of communications and strategy for Intr...

The field of behavioral economics is premised on the fact that people are irrational. By harnessing tools, such as incentives, healthcare providers and drugmakers are trying to change patient behavior as a way to improve outcomes and keep people heathy. Susan Garfield, principal in the life sciences practice of EY, discussed the opportunities for the application of behavioral economics in the heal...

Dmitry Kaminskiy does not have a lot of kind words for aging. In fact, the general partner at Deep Knowledge Ventures and managing trustee of the Biogerontology Research Foundation has called it the “ultimate evil.” As part of his ongoing war against aging the venture capitalist is offering a $1 million prize to the first person to reach the age of 123. We spoke to Kaminskiy about the longevity in...

Children undergoing chemotherapy often face permanent hearing loss as a result of the toxicity of these treatments. The Children’s Cause for Cancer Advocacy is organizing a Patient Focused Drug Development meeting with the FDA in September in the hopes of getting the agency to put greater consideration into the harmful effects these drugs can have and what it means for patients to lose their heari...

Alzheimer’s disease has been a costly and elusive area for drug developers. Despite many promising results in early-stage trials, drug companies have seen millions of dollars of R&D investment end in spectacular late-stage failures. While treatments for the disease are desperately needed, one of the barriers to success has been the availability of diagnostics that can detect the disease at early s...

The lack of diversity in genomic data has been an issue of growing concern. It threatens to limit the benefits from the massive investment that has been made to date to transform biomedical research, drug development, and the clinical care of patients. We spoke to Jonas Korlach, chief scientific officer of Pacific Biosciences, about the problem, how it’s being addressed, and the role advancing tec...

Developers of cancer immunotherapies are in a race to find combinations that can distinguish their products for specific indications. Biomarkers, which have played an essential role in the development of targeted therapies, have proven a much more complex challenge in the realm of immuno-oncology. Nevertheless, biomarkers may be the key to winning the competitive battles in immuno-oncology. We spo...

As the value of the patient perspective gains greater recognition throughout the healthcare continuum, Wego Health is seeking to both tap and provide that perspective to guide a range of clients within the world of healthcare. The company has amassed a network of more than 100,000 people that includes patients, caregivers, thought leaders, and influencers. We spoke to Jack Barrette, founder and CE...

It seems to be strange times when people feel the need to take to the streets to voice their support for science, but that’s what happened earlier this month as the second annual March for Science was held in Washington, D.C. and 250 other cities around the world. To mark the occasion, we spoke to Mary Woolley, CEO of Research! Amercia, about the public perception of science, the state of funding...

The global demand for meat is rising as is concerns about the health dangers, environmental toll, and animal welfare issues related to the way we produce meat today. The Good Food Institute is a nonprofit working with scientists, investors, and entrepreneurs to advance efforts to make clean meat and plant-based alternatives a commercial reality. We spoke to Liz Specht, senior scientist for The Goo...

Familial hypercholesterolemia, or FH, is an inherited disorder that leads to premature cardiovascular disease. It can lead to heart attacks, strokes, and the narrowing of heart valves. In people with the condition, genetic mutations impair the ability of the liver to metabolize excess fats. While an estimated 1.3 million people in the United States have FH, only about 10 percent are diagnosed. We...

While most drug developers have sought to target aberrant genes or the proteins driving diseases, Syros Pharmaceuticals has developed a proprietary platform that targets the regulatory region of DNA to not only turn genes on or off but modulate their activity as well. The company is initially focusing on cancer and monogenic diseases. We spoke to Nancy Simonian, CEO of Syros, about the company’s p...

A sharp spike in generic drug prices that triggered an investigation in Connecticut continues to deepen. The antitrust case that alleges price-fixing and widespread collusion between generic drug companies to divvy up markets and avoid competition has now grown to include attorneys general in 49 states seeking action against 18 companies and two executives for activity involving an expanding list...

Rural counties in the United States have seen a steady loss of hospital-based obstetric services. A new study published in JAMA that looked at nearly 5 million births in almost 1,100 rural U.S. counties found a connection between the loss of these services and eroding outcomes for newborns and their mothers. We spoke to Carrie Henning-Smith, deputy director of the University of Minnesota’s Rural H...