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Welcome to the Empowered Patient Podcast with Karen Jagoda.  This show is a window into the latest innovations in applying generative AI, novel therapeutics and vaccines, and the changing dynamics in the medical and healthcare environment. One focus is on how providers, pharmaceutical companies, and payers are empowering patients.  In addition, conversations are often about how providers, care facilities, pharmaceutical companies, and payers are being empowered by technology to improve patient outcomes and reduce friction across the healthcare landscape.

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  • Virtual and digital health
  • Use of AI, ML, and LLM in healthcare and drug discovery, development, trials
  • Value-based healthcare 
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  • Next-generation immuno, cell, and gene therapies
  • Vaccines
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  • Clinical trials
  • Addressing Social Determinants of Health
  • Treating chronic conditions like obesity and pain
  • Clinician and staff burnout

The audience includes life science leaders, researchers, medical professionals, patient advocates, digital health entrepreneurs, patients, caregivers, healthcare solution providers, students, journalists, and investors. 

 

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Empowered Patient Solutions

May 12, 2025

Dr. Paul Moore, Chief Scientific Officer at Zymeworks, focuses on developing targeted therapies, particularly multispecific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates for hard-to-treat cancers such as gynecological, thoracic, and digestive tract cancers. This approach can target multiple areas on tumor cells and immune cells, potentially overcoming tumor heterogeneity and allowing for immune system modulation. The platform allows for a plug-and-play approach, enabling the development of therapies for oncology and autoimmune diseases.

 Paul explains, "So, multispecific antibodies are antibodies. Antibodies traditionally have a single target that they bind, so they're monoclonal and hit a specific target. A lot of excitement is generated for bispecific antibodies, which are engineered to bind two targets. Then with multispecifics, you are trying to broaden even further the number of targets or binding sites you've incorporated into your drug so that you can simultaneously interact with more than one target. The reason that can be important is that allows and facilitates new biology that is not possible for just a monoclonal antibody or a single antibody-targeting drug conjugate."  

"Multispecifics open up the opportunity to take two targets that are on different cells, different cell populations. So, you can have a target on a tumor cell you're trying to target. Then you can have a target on an immune cell like a T cell, which you can co-engage. You can bridge a T cell to a binding domain that's on a multispecific with your second specificity, which can bind to the cell.  And what that allows you to do is bring the T cell into the environment of the tumor cell, and through that engagement, the T cell can kill the tumor cell.  So that is the foundation of a lot of excitement in bispecifics."

#Zymeworks #Antibodies #MultispecificAntibodies #ADC #AntibodyDrugConjugate #Tumors #Cancer #ImmuneSystem

zymeworks.com

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Zymeworks