Speaker 1:
Welcome to TD Cowen Insights, a space that brings leading thinkers together to share insights and ideas shaping the world around us. Join us as we converse with the top minds who are influencing our global sectors.
Dan Brennan:
I'm Dan Brennan, follow tools and diagnostics here at TD Cowen. We're here at our Longevity as a Luxury Conference. And I'm with David Medvedeff, who's the CEO of Radence.
David, tell me about Radence, which I think is just a fascinating company in the middle of precision medicine.
David Medvedeff:
Sure. So Radence is a precision medicine specialty practice. Just like other specialties like cardiology or nephrology, precision medicine has really come into itself with the idea that we want to make more data-driven decisions, and we need these data to understand the progression of disease, whether it's cancer, neurodegenerative disease, cardiovascular, metabolic disorders. It's almost impossible for a primary care doctor to try to do this off the side of their desk. When you think about there are three to 5,000 new clinical citations a day coming out, how do you synthesize that down into true signal?
What we've built is a team of experts who are constantly calling through this information. We call it concierge science, looking for the best that medicine can be. How can we access early disease detection, disease interception as quickly as possible to avoid downstream conditions that then we have to be heroes in the healthcare system. So this precision medicine practice that we've created looks to bring together blood biomarkers, genomics, different imaging protocols to really look inside of somebody and understand what's happening so that we can avoid disease as early as possible.
Dan Brennan:
Terrific. Radence talks about the 3As: assessment, analysis, and activation. David, can you expand a bit on that?
David Medvedeff:
Sure. Assessment starts with the idea that we have to know as much as possible clinically for a particular person. So it starts with collecting all of your past medical history, talking to your previous doctors, looking at your chart, collecting all of your labs and previous images, and establishing an initial hypothesis of where we want to begin developing these protocols for you.
Second, it is collecting the data we need to look at things like brain volume, blood biomarkers around neurodegeneration. Understanding what's changing in your body, we have to know where the baseline starts. So the assessment is collecting this baseline. The analysis then goes into, now that we have all these data through genomics, through blood, through imaging, what are we starting to see? Where are the signals? Not only today, but the first sign of a signal change.
That takes us to action. So when we see something, we have to act as quickly as possible. First, we want to escalate the least invasive way possible to see, is there really something here? Minimize anxiety in the process. And if there is something, we then have to have a plan to get you into the medical system to intervene as quickly as we can.
Dan Brennan:
Technology and advances in science play a huge role in Radence's business model, and your intertwined relationship with RA Capital is central to this. David, can you elaborate on your RA relationship, provide some examples of what Radence does to leverage the best diagnostic and therapeutic advances that may have for your customers?
David Medvedeff:
Sure. RA Capital is fundamental to our business. The concept itself was incubated at RA Capital, a $13 billion biotech hedge fund. Their team spends all day, every day meeting clinical researchers, understanding where breakthroughs and advancements will happen in therapeutics and diagnostics. After they saw what medicine could be, they decided they wanted to build it for themselves and their family and ultimately the people they serve. So they created really the essence of Radence, and today we share a very close relationship with them. So not only are they our financial sponsors, but they're our intellectual partners. We leverage their team of experts to understand where breakthroughs are happening, how do we get access to those breakthroughs as quickly as possible, and they help write and inform the clinical protocols that ultimately we implement on behalf of our members.
Dan Brennan:
So can you discuss the misalignment, David, in our healthcare system about timing of care and intervention along with incentives that are in place? I think all of which Radence seeks to address with your offerings and strategy. Are there opportunities in the US to improve the current system?
David Medvedeff:
The current system in the US is highly performing when it comes to heroic types of care. We wait for disease to really set in, and then we start to lean in with innovations that try to change late-course disease. We believe there's a real opportunity to go much more upstream, identify disease at earlier stages when we can truly impact it. And that's where we focus, is really the compression of the timeline. 25 years ago this year, the Institute of Medicine published Crossing the Quality Chasm and identified it takes 17 years for a scientific breakthrough in the clinical field to become standard of care. We believe there should be a different standard, not 17 years. Our goal is 1.7 years or even shorter than that.
So we hold ourselves accountable to the idea that science is changing very quickly. If we are building this concierge science platform, we want access to those breakthroughs as quickly as possible. So we have to work outside of the current healthcare payer system to do that, but we leverage the infrastructure that exists because it's great. It just needs to be repurposed.
Dan Brennan:
So what are some of the friction points that you encounter with your customers as they seek to go on this journey for precision medicine?
David Medvedeff:
I'd say the two primary friction points here are the idea that to collect this data takes time. So this is not a one-and-done, once-a-year preventative medicine, couple of hours with the doctor or executive health. This really is an investment in time to have this level of insight in your body. So between the blood collection, the different types of imaging that we do, the time with our clinicians, you have to invest several hours every quarter to this type of work.
Second, I would say the anxiety that this could create. I like to say that our members should be as much biologically ready as they are psychologically ready to do this work. When you look inside of your body for the first time, you're going to find some things, and it can be frightening. It doesn't mean they're bad. It just means that's who you are. Our goal is to alleviate that anxiety as quickly as possible, escalate wherever needed as quickly as possible and reach real certainty. And that comes through picking the right tests at the right time and understanding the sensitivity and the specificity of those tests.
Dan Brennan:
What is Radence's position or focus or strategy for neurodegenerative disease and cancer? How are you trying to help patients live longer, healthier lives, and avoid both of those conditions?
David Medvedeff:
Sure. Yeah. We're living in this world of great hype around longevity. Our view of longevity is, this is not trying to turn back the clock or the fountain of youth. It's just helping people avoid dying from things that are totally avoidable. Cancer being one of those, that if we can detect them earlier, all of the statistics show that a stage 1, stage 2 cancer is much more survivable than a stage 3, 4. So we have to leverage great new technologies like multi-cancer early detection screenings or other types of cancer detection that's happening that are very point specific around things like prostate or lung or pancreatic, for example.
On the neurodegenerative side, it's a very similar story. So when I talk to people, they think Alzheimer's is just, it's kind of a death sentence. The reality is we can detect it, we can establish a baseline, we can detect it much sooner. At the earliest sign of change, we can maintain as much cognitive ability as possible. Why lose IQ points if we know that we've just seen a signal? There are medications that will slow the progression by as much as 60% today. Let's slow that progression because there's a cure around the corner, and you should maintain as much of your cognitive ability as possible.
Dan Brennan:
Maybe in wrapping up, David, if we look out, say, over the next 10 years, what does the healthcare system look like then in terms of this precision medicine journey, if you will?
David Medvedeff:
I'm quite optimistic about what the 10-year horizon looks like. The early work we're doing, the work that many other companies in the space are doing that are deeply scientific, evidence-based, not hype and snake oil, but true science, will inform the next generation of how we shape healthcare reimbursement. I believe there will be regulatory changes that will allow people to invest more of their money in proactive care. I'm optimistic that we may find a different health plan model where if you sign up for the model, you invest this time, your emotions into being proactive about your care, and in return you give a longer term subscription, if you will, to that health plan. They'll underwrite this work because they recognize that detecting disease earlier is actually a cost benefit to them as long as they have you in a relationship for a long time.
Dan Brennan:
Well, that's an awesome, inspiring end to this conversation. So David, thank you very much for being here.
David Medvedeff:
Thank you, Dan.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for joining us. Stay tuned for the next episode of TD Cowen Insights.
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