Publication Strategies for Biotech Commercialization, By Karen Ring, PhD

How Publications Drive Commercialization: Drs. Jon Block & Natalie DeWitt

By, Karen Ring PhD

The famous quote “Publish or Perish” doesn’t solely refer to the pressure for academics to publish continuously in order to maintain a successful career. To succeed in the current life sciences industry, biotech, pharma and medical device companies also need to publish their results in peer-reviewed journals to promote and commercialize their technologies. 

“How publications drive commercialization” was the topic of discussion at Bay Area LifeTech’s (BALT) latest Meetup on Monday November 10th. The event was held at DLA Piper and featured speakers Jon Block, PhD, and Natalie DeWitt, PhD. Jon is the Founder and President of the Jon Block Group, which is a clinical affairs consulting firm that helps clients execute effective publication strategies to expedite regulatory clearance and reimbursement approval on cutting edge technologies. Natalie is a former Senior Editor for Nature, and currently is the Director of Research Development at Baxter Laboratories at Stanford.

“This event was meant to provide a platform for discussion on what publication strategies biotech companies can use to move their programs forward,” explained BALT founder Luke Lightning, PhD. “The two speakers have phenomenal backgrounds and experience in helping their companies and/or agencies succeed in gaining FDA and/or NIH approval.”

Jon Block opened the discussion with a talk on “Driving Commercialization by Executing a Robust Publication Strategy.” He highlighted the following points:

The main driver of publications in industry now is reimbursement: if you publish, you will profit.

Publications promote credibility, drive commercialization, and result in better company valuations.

Publish early and often to build momentum and control your publication process to create a message that you can disseminate and repeat through future publications.

Consider quality vs. quantity. Home run publications are always fabulous, but they are rare and short-lived victories. Base hits (more frequent, smaller journal publications) are essential to maintain excitement and interest your technology.

Have a wide publication scope. Publish in different journals to attract broader audiences and consider different types of publications such as open-access journals, editorials, or commentaries that can provide alternative and insightful scientific perspectives.

Natalie DeWitt continued the conversation by sharing her tips for scientific publishing from an editor’s perspective. Natalie detailed the “ins and outs” of the publication process from submission to acceptance to dealing with rejection letters. She also discussed tips on how to get your paper in top-tier journals such as Cell or Nature, which currently accepts less than ten percent of total submissions. She explained that publications that make it to the big leagues are conceptually novel (i.e. editors have not heard of the discovery before), are technically convincing, and have findings that important to the field as well as a broad readership. 

Natalie kept her talk light by mentioning that high-impact journals like Nature make mistakes (e.g. rejecting the “Kreb’s cycle” paper whose author later received the Nobel Prize), and that you shouldn’t take rejection to heart. She ended by saying that while publications are important, “You shouldn’t judge people’s careers based on publications metrics and journal impact factors. You should look at what they’ve done throughout their careers.”

Overall, the speakers engaged the crowd of over 50 BALT attendees in a dynamic and informative conversation on how publications are essential for product commercialization and reimbursement and how to pursue the most effective publication strategy in biotech.

 Jon Block, PhD.

  

Natalie DeWitt, PhD and BALT founder Luke Lightning, PhD.

Bay Area LifeTech Explores Berkeley Biolabs by Karen Ring, PhD

Bay Area LifeTech Explores Berkeley Biolabs (October 3, 2014)

By: Karen Ring, PhD

Where are the major innovation hotspots for Life Sciences in the Bay Area? While Stanford and SF/Mission Bay easily come to mind, you might not know that another thriving center is located nearby in Berkeley, called Berkeley Biolabs. The mission of Berkeley Biolabs is to foster innovative research by providing space and support to scientists and biotech entrepreneurs. Bay Area LifeTech (BALT) had the pleasure of touring Berkeley Biolabs last week and met with the founders and entrepreneurs who are bringing exciting scientific ideas and products to life.

The tour included an introduction to Berkeley Biolabs by Co-Founder Ryan Bethencourt and Community Manager Mary Ward and short presentations by companies including Valen Scientific (Converting waste to biofuels) and Algas Biotechnologies (rechargeable algae-based batteries). For a list of the companies currently in Berkeley Biolabs, check out their portfolio. The tour was followed by a networking happy hour held at ACME Bar. 

BALT will host another exciting networking event in October titled “Spotlight on Bay Area Entrepreneurs”, which will be held on Wednesday October 29^th.

Event Photos:

Mary Ward, Community Manager, introduces the concept of Berkeley Biolabs to the BALT crowd.

Jayaranjan Anthonypillai and Michael Strawn of Valen Scientific talk about converting organic waste into biofuels.

Ryan Bethencourt, Berkeley BioLabs Co-Founder, shows off a rechargeable, algae-based battery developed by Algas Biotechnologies.

Frank Kusiak (Technical Project Manager at Lawrence Hall of Science) Luke Lightning, PhD (BALT founder, Business Development at LAUNCH.co), and Karen Ring, PhD (Postdoc at the Buck Institute, Events Correspondent at Big3Bio) at the BALT happy hour held at ACME Bar.

Steve Burrill Highlights Major Transitions in U.S. Healthcare at UCSF’s 14th Annual State of the Life Sciences Industry, By, Karen Ring Ph.D.

Steve Burrill Highlights Major Transitions in U.S. Healthcare at UCSF’s

14^th Annual State of the Life Sciences Industry

By, Karen Ring Ph.D.

In the 14^th annual address on the State of the Life Sciences Industry, Steve Burrill, founder and CEO of Burrill & Company, gave an overview of the current standing of the life sciences industry and detailed major transitions in U.S. healthcare in the next decade. The event was hosted by the Entrepreneurship Center at UCSF and was the introductory class to a popular team-based entrepreneurship course called “Idea to IPO”. 

Overview on 2013 in Life Sciences

2013 was an exciting year for the life sciences sector with 52 companies going public and raising a total of $7.5 billion from investors. This was an impressive increase in the number of IPOs compared to 2012, when 16 companies went public and raised $1.1 billion. Burrill attributed this past year’s booming prosperity to a strengthening U.S. economy, the approval of 39 new drugs in 2012 by the FDA, the success of established biotech and pharmaceutical companies, and the high demand for novel therapeutics, diagnostics, health-related technology. 

He also touched on trends that are reshaping the life sciences industry including major acquisitions by big pharma (e.g. Onyx by Amgen) instead of building in-house programs, broadening investor interest and capital inflows into healthcare, development of biosimilar drugs and specialized therapeutics for orphan diseases, and an increase in clinical trial transparency.

Major Transitions in US Healthcare

With the advent of Obamacare, major changes to the U.S. healthcare system and market are already happening. Burrill listed a number of significant differences that will occur. The U.S. will experience a transition from a “one size fits all” model towards precision medicine and personalized healthcare. Promoting and incentivising patient wellness will be the main focus of the new system, which is already burdened with treating costly chronic diseases and caring for an aging baby boomer population. 

While drug discovery and novel therapeutics will remain important, diagnostics and personalized therapies will be in high demand as precision medicine, which combines molecular profiling of patient genomic information with clinical and pathological data, will identify which patients respond positively to specific drugs or vaccines thereby offering the most effective treatment with minimized consequences. Furthermore, where money was previously funneled into doctor-administered procedures, the balance will be tipped towards paying for treatment outcomes, which will shift the focus towards overall quality of care rather than quantity. 

Accompanying all these changes, Burrill predicts a massive consolidation and integration of the healthcare system in the next five years. 

Personalized Healthcare and Digital Health at the Forefront

Burrill explained that digital health companies are revolutionizing our healthcare system by providing tools, technology, and applications, involving telemedicine, electronic health records, patient monitoring services, population health management, “big data” analysis, and hospital administration. Personalized healthcare aided by digital health technology will allow patients easier access to medical and clinical information, and will provide health plans and treatments tailored to individual patients. 

Additionally, digital health partnered with precision medicine will foster predictive and preventative means to anticipate disease, identify drug-drug interactions, and vastly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of patient care. Digital health has already had a large impact on U.S. healthcare and will continue to do so as venture capital funding and the number of digital health IPOs rise over the next year. 

What 2014 Holds for Life Sciences

Burrill’s prediction for the state of life sciences industry in 2014 was positive yet practical. He discussed how there would be continued success but a slowing in momentum with regards to number of IPOs and amount of capital raised compared to 2013. He pointed out that under Obamacare, there will be more pressure by payers on drug companies to lower costs of new therapeutics, and to prove that these new drugs are cost-effective compared to similar drugs already on the market. 

Patients will switch from passive to active roles in wellness management aided by the abundance of clinical data at their finger tips, diagnostics will be in higher demand, and innovation will focus heavily on treatment and prevention of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and dementia, that have become global epidemics. 

Burrill closed his address by reiterating his main point about how U.S. healthcare is moving away from its original focus on medical procedures and costs towards a system that embraces values and overall health outcomes.

Karen Ring is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. To contact Karen, email at Ring.Karen@gmail.com. 

Bay Area LifeTech Hosts Young Innovators in Oncology

By: Karen Ring, PhD

Bay Area LifeTech (BALT) hosted an event titled “Young Innovators in Oncology” at the Netherlands Consulate General in San Francisco on December 5, 2013. The talk featured three speakers, two academics, Francesca Gazzaniga and Marvin Tannenbaum from UCSF, and an entrepreneur, Shawn Carbonell from OncoSynergy. The event brought in new faces from all over the bay area including a high school student who was interested in Cancer research. Luke Lightning, PhD, founder of BALT, along with support from Robert Thijssen and Natasha Chatlein of the Netherlands Office of Science and Technology (NOST) succeeded in throwing another captivating and informative event. Below are summaries of the talks by the three speakers.  

Francesca Gazzaniga is a graduate student in Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn’s lab at UCSF. Dr. Blackburn received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 for her discovery of the telomerase enzyme and how it maintains telomere length. Telomeres are sequences of DNA at the ends of chromosomes that act as caps that prevent chromosome shortening and loss of important genetic information during cell division. Francesca’s graduate research focuses on the role of telomerase in breast cancer. Breast cancer is the number one cause of cancer-related death in women and accounts for almost 30% of all diagnosed cancers in women. Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease, which is why having a library of tissue samples or cancer cell lines is extremely valuable for studying this disease. Francesca has access to 50 human breast cancer cell lines and made it her goal to study telomerase activity and telomere length in each of these lines. Interestingly, she and Dr. Imke Listerman, a postdoc in the Blackburn lab, found that both telomerase activity and telomere length varied in all 50 lines and that telomerase activity was elevated in basal breast tumors, which is the most metatstatic form of breast cancer. She also identified specific genes and cell signaling pathways that correlated with telomerase activity and telomere length in these cancer cell lines. The telomerase gene, hTERT, correlated with telomerase activity, which was to be expected. Interestingly, the apoptotic pathway, a form of cell death, also correlated with telomerase activity. Francesca suggested that new therapies targeting breast cancer in women should use a two-pronged approach that targets both telomerase activity as well as cell death.

Marvin Tannenbaum, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar in Dr. Ron Vale’s lab at UCSF. Dr. Vale received the Lasker Award in 2012 and is an expert in studying molecular motors, which are proteins that carry cargo to different parts of the cell along tracks called microtubules. Marvin’s postdoctoral work focuses on the role of molecular motors in cell division and cancer. Cell division (or mitosis) is a mechanical process, which involves the duplication and separation of chromosomes coordinated with the division of the cell. A bipolar mitotic spindle composed of microtubules and molecular motors mediates chromosome segregation. A specific molecular motor, Eg5, promotes bipolar spindle assembly and is essential for proper chromosome segregation. Inhibition of Eg5 function results in the formation of a monopolar spindle structure and prevents chromosome segregation and cell division. Cancer cells are notorious for uncontrolled cell division and consequently, inhibition of Eg5 has been pursued as a target to halt cancer cell growth. Eg5 inhibitors are already in clinical trials and results so far show low toxicity but also low efficacy with tumors acquiring resistance early on in treatment. Furthermore, cancer cells can grow and divide without Eg5 function. Marvin hypothesized that other molecular motors must compensate for Eg5 function. Using an RNAi knockdown screen, he was able to identify Kinesin12 (K12) as the molecular motor that can act with Eg5 to promote bipolar spindle assembly. When he inhibited Eg5 function and overexpressed K12, he saw that cells could still form bipolar spindles and divide, proving that K12 can take over Eg5 function. Furthermore, when he took Eg5 resistant cancer cells and treated them with RNAi against K12, he saw 100% formation of monopolar spindles and no cell division. Thus Marvin proposed that he has found an alternative target for treating cancer cells that are resistant to Eg5 inhibitors.

Shawn Carbonell, MD, PhD, is the founder and CEO of OncoSynergy, a biotechnology startup located in Mission Bay, San Francisco. A former brain surgeon trainee turned entrepreneur, Shawn’s goal is to bring “Targeted Synergy” to cancer therapeutics. His company has initially focused on pursing novel therapies for glioblastoma (GB), the most malignant type of brain cancer that has a median survival rate of 12 months. Avastin, a monoclonal antibody developed by Roche, is an inhibitor of angiogenesis (blood vessel formation) and is approved for recurrent GB. Unfortunately, approximately 40% of GB patients are non-responders to Avastin and patients that do respond typically see a more aggressive recurrence of their cancer after several months. Faced with these daunting facts, Shawn proposed an idea that an effective cancer treatment could come in the form of a single drug that attacks a spectrum of cancer promoting mechanisms, i.e., Targeted Synergy. He focused on integrins, which are transmembrane receptor proteins that mediate cellular adhesion and are a critical path for interactions within the tumor microenvironment that drive tumor growth and progression. By using a monoclonal antibody called OS2966, which selectively modulates β1 integrins, Shawn and colleagues were able to inhibit GB cell migration, adhesion, and angiogenesis in vitro. Additionally, they observed complete growth inhibition, a reduction in growth factor receptor expression, and a pro-apoptotic effect in human xenograft models of Avastin-resistant GB. OS2966 is a drug platform that also prevents spontaneous lung metastasis in a triple negative breast cancer model. Shawn believes that OS2966 has blockbuster potential because of its multiple mechanisms of action and dramatic activity in several aggressive cancer models. OncoSynergy plans to initiate Phase I clinical trials in GB in 2016. Additionally, they are developing two other drug platforms called OS47720 and OS342. The latter is being advanced to treat dermal neurofibromas in Neurofibromatosis Type 1. 

As the official blogger for BALT, I’d like to wish everyone the happiest of holidays and thank those of you who have supported and attended BALT events in 2013. I’d also like to give a special shout out to BALT sponsors Cell Signaling Technology, Medline, and NOST. BALT is planning to welcome 2014 with a brand new website and will also be looking for member feedback on fresh ideas for BALT events. Lastly, the next Meetup scheduled is the State of the Life Sciences Industry with Steve Burrill on Thursday, January 16^th 2014 at UCSF, Mission Bay. 

Karen Ring is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. To contact Karen, email her at Ring.Karen@gmail.com.

Bay Area LifeTech Hosts Nano Precision Medical and European Startup Competition at Netherlands Consulate General

By Karen Ring, Ph.D.

This month’s Bay Area LifeTech (BALT) event, held at the Netherlands Consulate General, featured talks from Nano Precision Medical, RockHealth, and European health startups. The event was organized and hosted by BALT founder Luke Lightning Ph.D., the Netherlands Office of Science and Technology (NOST), and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT ICT Labs). It was a record turnout with over 100 BALT members in attendance. 

Adam Mendelsohn Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Nano Precision Medical (NPM), kicked off the event with a discussion on how NPM’s subdermal implant device can vastly improve consistent drug delivery to patients. Adam and his colleagues developed the idea in graduate school and their idea took off in 2008 when they entered and won the Berkeley business plan competition. Their implant device utilizes titanium oxide nanotubes with precisely sized pores that allow for constant rate delivery of drug molecules over long periods of time. The nanotubes can be tailored for specific drug molecules by altering the size of the drug-releasing pores. Diseases that would benefit from NPM’s technology include type II diabetes, lysosomal storage diseases, hemophilia, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis, and many others. When asked about the current status of their product and company, Adam explained, “ We are currently in early-stage preclinical development.  We have proof-of-concept pharmacokinetic data demonstrating that our technology works, and we have recently begun applying the technology to a compound for type II diabetes. Our short-term goal is to develop proof-of-concept human efficacy data with an important application that could feasibly become a product, and our long-term goal is to apply the technology more broadly to the numerous therapeutic molecules for which long-term constant-rate delivery would benefit patients.” Keep your eyes open BALTers because this company will be one to watch for in the future!

Following Adam’s talk, Malay Ghandi spoke about how RockHealth, a nonprofit startup based in San Francisco, is attempting to transform health care by supporting digital health startups through their full service seed fund. RockHealth, founded in 2010, invests in early stage digital health companies and has already put 60 startup companies through its program, which includes benefits such as seed funding, mentors, office space, and operational support. Malay mentioned that applications are open for the next class of startups until the end of October.

The second half of the event was new to the BALT scene and featured pitches from European health IT startups supported by EIT ICT Labs. EIT ICT Labs is an innovation and education organization based in the Netherlands whose mission is to “drive European leadership in ICT innovation for economic growth and quality of life”. Earlier in the day, these startups participated in a boot camp where they were coached on how to give effective pitches to potential investors. After revising their original work, these startups tested their newly perfected pitches on the BALT crew.

In all, 11 European startups gave two minute pitches in a competition voted on by event attendees. While each startup gave a compelling case for their health product, Biocare Provider, Beddit, Monobonda, and Proxible, were the four that won the most votes from the crowd. Read below for brief descriptions of these startups.

Beddit is a Finnish company that strives to improve human health through sleep quality. Beddit is a thin film sensor placed under bed sheets that monitors sleep quality, heart rate, snoring, movement, and bedroom environment. Beddit sends information to your mobile device where an application generates data that details your sleep history and provides guidance on how to improve your sleep quality. Numerous sleep-monitoring devices exist, but they all require the user to wear sensors, which can be cumbersome. Beddit is barely detectable and allows for more accurate readings of sleep quality. 

BioCare Provider is an Italian startup that provides simple solutions to complex therapies. BioCare acknowledges that effective disease treatment can be complicated by factors such as difficulty to take medications, poor communication with doctors, health literacy and awareness, the list goes on. In response, BioCare generated a cloud- and mobile app based platform called Dr. Drin that connects patient medical history to doctors, pharmacists, and other providers, and supplies therapeutic management solutions. 

Comftech is an Italian startup whose motto is “we care with Comfortable Technology.” Comftech has designed clothes with built-in sensors that continuously monitor the wearer’s physiological parameters allowing for diagnosis, treatment, and even prevention of certain diseases such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Initially focusing on preterm infants, Comftech designed the “Kiddie”, baby clothing with small biosensors that record the heart’s electrical activity. The company is expanding its product repertoire to include sensorized garments for kids, athletes, pregnant mothers, and the elderly.

Connected Care is a Netherlands based startup that provides a coordinated care platform for elderly patients, family caregivers, and professional organizations. Users can upload their daily activities and needs thus allowing for more efficient and less costly care from care providers. As an added benefit, Connected Care can step in when family caregivers need additional help by providing on-demand, professional support.

Cordian is a Dutch startup that is addressing the challenge of providing adequate healthcare for the world’s expanding aging population with its Sustainable Care platform. Cordian collaborates with aging care facilities to provide a better quality of life and more efficient care for patients using advance technological innovations such as the BedLeave monitoring system, which notifies nurses when a patient leaves his or her bed.

Mendor is a Finnish startup that provides a next generation blood glucose meter for diabetes management. Described as “quick and sleek”, this device allows users to test their blood glucose levels in less than 20 seconds in an all-in-one portable device the size of a smart phone. Results are uploaded to a cloud-based diabetes care platform called Mendor Balance, which allows doctors to access patient results thereby providing a more individualized form of care. 

Monobonda is a Dutch gaming company whose mission is to get individuals to play through interactive experiences. Each game conveys a specific message in a personal way. These messages have a common theme: promoting human happiness, health, and wellness. Examples include an iPad game for toddlers called “Nott Won’t Sleep” which promotes healthy sleeping habits, and a game called “Remembering” which was shown to improve the happiness of Alzheimer’s patients while they played the game. 

Ontoforce is a Belgian startup that develops semantic technology to collect and manage private and public biomedical data. Ontoforce aims to accelerate drug discovery by linking diverse arrays of data through an online, user-friendly search engine called disQover. Ontoforce’s technology allows pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, doctors, researchers, and even patients to save time, reduce costs, and ultimately, save human lives.

Proxible is a Dutch startup that offers proximity technology for businesses where relevant information can be sent directly to visitor’s smart devices via proximity sensors. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the way doctors and providers access patient information. Proxible has generated a bed sensor that connects to a doctor’s smart device and uploads a patient’s record at the touch of a button. This innovative technology can improve healthcare by avoiding misplacement or mixing up of patient information. 

RecoApp is a Finnish health and fitness mobile application that does not require an external monitoring device. RecoApp takes advantage of the latest sports and exercise science research to generate personalized workouts that minimize injury and recovery time and maximize health and fitness. The app comes with features that ensure that you are not over- or undertraining and diligent users can experience enhanced athletic performance, increased muscle mass, decreased body fat, and reduced stress levels.

Relaxbirth is a Finland-based company that gives women an active and empowering role when giving birth. The Relaxbirth method, which is an adjustable support system, maximizes the mother’s natural way of giving birth and allows the mother to relax during the first stage of labor in order to save energy for the second stage. The results are not only a more comfortable birthing process, but also an improvement in the overall wellbeing of the mother at childbirth. 

For more information on EIT ICT Labs and the European startup boot camp, read Natasha Chatlein’s blog on the NOST silicon valley website. Join BALT on Thursday December 5^th for another exciting event hosted at the Netherlands Consulate General. The topic for this Meetup will be Oncology and will feature talks from academics, clinicians, and startups.

Karen Ring is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. To Contact Karen, email at Ring.Karen@gmail.com.

Bay Area Startups: Bringing Digital Health to Your Fingertips by Karen Ring, PhD

Bay Area Startups: Bringing Digital Health to Your Fingertips

By Karen Ring, Ph.D.

Did you know that approximately 1 in 2 Americans live with at least one chronic illness? With our growing elderly population and skyrocketing healthcare costs, the US is eager to find ways to minimize spending and increase the efficiency and quality of patient care.

One of the opportunities currently being pursued is digital health. Digital health integrates patient health and wellness with digital technology in order to establish a more organized and communicative healthcare network. The industry is blowing up with 55 digital health exits either through IPO or acquisitions in the past year and more than $956 million raised from venture capital firms reported in 2011. The market is projected to hit $31.3 billion by 2017 and $60 billion in 2025.

To be honest, I was relatively unfamiliar with the concept of digital health technology, until I attended Bay Area LifeTech’s (BALT) digital health meetup featuring talks by three digital health startup companies: Practice Fusion, Better Doctor, and Mevoked. The event was organized by BALT founder Luke Lightning, Ph.D., and sponsored by DLA Piper and Robert W. Baird & Co.

Stephen Abreu, an associate at DLA Piper and the host of the event, commented, “It was a pleasure for DLA Piper to host the digital health networking event.  We recognize that the area of digital health is a growing field and holds much promise, with the potential to address some of the most challenging issues in healthcare.  We welcome the opportunity to support entrepreneurs in the space, and hope to leverage our deep expertise in areas such as corporate law, intellectual property transactions, and regulatory analysis to continue to do so.”

The talks were eye-opening and spoke to how technology can revolutionize healthcare in the next few decades. Below are descriptions of each of the presentations.

Sachin Kelkar has been at Practice Fusion (practicefusion.com) for six months in the role of corporate finance strategy. The company has tackled population health management by providing physicians and medical doctors with free electronic medical records that are contained within a single, cloud-based platform. This platform is useful for doctors as well as patients not only for digitizing patient medical history, but also for identifying new patients, emailing test results or diagnoses, booking appointments, filling prescriptions, and even identifying potential medical problems such as allergies or drug-drug interactions. Patients can also find new doctors who subscribe to Practice Fusion through a service called “Patient Fusion”. Practice Fusion generates revenue through advertisements and is the fastest growing online health platform in the US. Currently, 1 in 4 doctors choose their services. Sachin explains their client base, “Practice Fusion targets the ambulatory, or non-hospital based, physician community where north of 50% of doctors are still charting on paper. 80% of physicians practice outside of the hospital, but Practice Fusion’s reach is naturally moving upstream to larger practices, IPAs and community based hospitals.” It seems that the sky’s the limit for Practice Fusion with more than 100,000 doctors using their platform and their recent $70 Million Series D fundraising, which values the company at approximately $700 million..

Paul Whitaker has worked with BetterDoctor (betterdoctor.com) for nine months as the vice president of business development. BetterDoctor makes it easier for patients to find high quality doctors by doing the work for them. By using either their online website or downloading their mobile app, patients can look up local doctors that have been rated and meet the criteria of a “better doctor”. Signing up is simple. BetterDoctor asks you to supply background information such as where you live, your insurance provider, and what type of doctor you need, in order to match you with a doctor in a timely manner. Doctors who participate in this program in turn are rated based off a number of criteria including consumer rating services, state licensing board information, outcome data, education, and training data.  While BetterDoctor has focused its efforts initially on the Bay Area, it is also expanding across the US. Paul explains, “Most of the doctors in the US are already on our service. People from Paris Texas to New York and San Francisco can find local doctors using BetterDoctor. The rollout of markets is really more related to doctor participation. We want doctors to be engaged to ensure that they are well represented on BetterDoctor. This creates much higher value for patients and for doctors.” So don’t worry if you find yourself sick while you are out of town: finding a physician could be as simple as downloading BetterDoctor!

Arun Ravi is the CEO and founder of Mevoked (mevoked.com), a behavioral analysis platform that correlates online and mobile behavior to mental health wellness. Mental health is one of the biggest untreated problems plaguing US healthcare. The average time from diagnosis to actual treatment is 20 years. As Arun puts it, “Mental health needs technology and it hasn’t come to that yet.” Mevoked presents an opportunity to help with mental health wellness. Arun and his colleagues have teamed up with an advisory board of psychiatrists and psychologists to look at behavioral indicators of mental illness in young adults. Mevoked was designed to determine an individual’s state of mind based on how he or she uses technology such as a computer, smartphone, or iPad. Mevoked also provides a monitoring system for parents who can receive reports about their child’s activities online and more important identify any warning signs of potential worrisome online behavior. While Mevoked is currently focused on tracking mental illness, Arun’s plan is to eventually use this platform to track the onset of other debilitating and devastating diseases such as neurodegenerative disorders, eating disorders, and post traumatic stress disorder in war veterans. Mevoked will launch its consumer product at the end of September. Keep your eyes open because the first 100 users who sign up will receive a discount!  

The next BALT networking event featuring local start-ups will focus on Medical Devices and will be held on Thursday, October 3rd at the Netherlands Consulate General. Also, we have an exciting announcement: The BALT group recently surpassed a major milestone and welcomed its 1,000th member! Congratulations to Luke for putting together such a successful networking group!

Karen Ring is a postdoctoral scholar at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. To contact Karen email at Ring.Karen@gmail.com.

Networking by the Bay by Karen Ring, PhD

Networking by the Bay: Bay Area LifeTech event brings academia and biotech together.

By Karen Ring, PhD

(Frank Bos PhD, Aniek Janssen PhD, Gaia Skibinski PhD, Luke Lightning PhD)

Bay Area LifeTech (BALT) held another successful networking event this past Thursday at the Netherlands Consulate General, Office of Science and Technology (NOST) in San Francisco. Founded by Luke Lightning, PhD, BALT hosts local meetup events that bring together members of biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical device industries, as well as academics, investors, executives, and clinicians, to foster an interactive, health sciences-based community. NOST, headed by Robert Thijssen, PhD, and Natasha Chatlein, strives to promote collaborations in the fields of energy, health science, and technology, between the US West Coast, Canada, and the Netherlands. When asked about working with BALT, Natasha said, “This is our third event with Luke and we at the NOST look forward to more opportunities for collaboration. We think of Bay Area LifeTech as a great platform to showcase topnotch research and innovations in the life sciences and biotech field, both here in Silicon Valley as well as in the Netherlands.”

Titled “Rocking Research by Bay Area Postdocs”, the event featured a meet-and-great happy hour sponsored by Cell Signaling Technology, Corning, and Medline. Over 50 BALT members showed up to enjoy dim sum and cocktails over stimulating conversation on hot topics such as stem cell clinical trials and the current financing of biotechnology. The happy hour was followed by three short presentations by local postdocs on cutting-edge research focusing on angiogenesis, Parkinson’s disease, and cancer therapy. Feedback on the event was very positive. Postdoc Mahru An, commenting about the experience, said, “This was my first BALT event and I was glad to find easy conversations with friendly people who were open to talk about the industry and their professional experience.” Likewise another postdoc, Olga Momcilovic, said, “The speakers were really good. This was a great opportunity to meet BALT colleagues, talk about science, and learn from a diverse group of professionals in a relaxed and friendly environment. Not to mention that food and drinks were awesome, too! I am definitively going to another event.”

Below is a brief description of each of the three postdoc presentations:

Frank Bos, recent PhD graduate from the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht and current postdoc in Dr. Ann Zovein’s lab at the University of California San Francisco, kicked off the talks with his take on “True Blood Production”. Frank is passionate about the role of endothelial cells in the generation of blood cells and uses both mouse and zebra fish models to study angiogenesis and the development of the vasculature. More specifically, Frank wants to determine what genes and pathways are important for the development of what is termed the hemogenic (or blood producing) endothelium. Looking to the future, he will attempt to generate populations of definitive hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) (precursors to mature blood cells) from adult endothelial cells by a process called directed differentiation. He highlighted the importance of this research by pointing out that prior attempts to generate definitive HSCs from embryonic stem cells resulted in only primitive hematopoiesis, which is not sufficient to repopulate and sustain irradiated mice that lack their own bone marrow.

Gaia Skibinski, a PhD from London’s Institute of Neurology and now postdoc in Dr. Steve Finkbeiner’s lab at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease, gave a talk on cellular models of Parkinson’s disease (PD). She is specifically interested in the LRRK2 mutation, which is responsible for about 10% of familial PD cases. Gaia uses both mouse and human stem cell models to determine the role that LRRK2 plays in PD pathogenesis. Her research is aided by powerful tools that were built from scratch in the Finkbeiner lab. Named Robo1 and Robo2, these high-throughput robotic microscopes can take consecutive images of specific neurons throughout their lifetime. Gaia was able to monitor dopaminergic neuron (the specific neuronal subtype affected in PD) cell death over time in healthy and LRRK2 patient neurons that were derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells. She found that increased levels of LRRK2 in human neurons put those neurons at higher risk of cell death compared to healthy neurons.

Lastly, Aniek Janssen, who received her PhD at the Netherlands Cancer Institute and now researches in the lab of Dr. Gary Karpen at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, rounded of the evening with a discussion on potential anti-cancer therapies. Aniek studies genetic instability and DNA damage in cancer cells. When cancer cells divide through a process called mitosis, the segregation of chromosomes occurs abnormally, resulting in the loss or addition of chromosomes in cells. Chromosome missegregation is a major contributor to tumorigenesis and can lead to DNA damage at the sight of missegregation. Aniek believes that we can target this genetic instability, which occurs in about 80% of all solid tumors, by increasing instability, which would subsequently “tip the balance” and send cancer cells down the pathway of cell death.  Her take home message was that genetic instability, a hallmark of cancer cells, can be exploited for therapeutic purposes.

BALT and NOST will continue to host exciting events featuring the careers and accomplishments of various BALT members. If you are interested in attending a BALT happy hour, the next event will be on August 1st at Lucky Strike Lanes in San Francisco from 5:30-8:30 PM. Additionally NOST will be hosting a Medical Devices event sometime during the fall of 2013.

Karen Ring is a Postdoctoral Scholar in Dr. Lisa Ellerby’s lab at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. To contact Karen, email kring@buckinstitute.org.