Ep19 - Why Is Heart Failure Drug Development Falling Behind with Ayla Annac

So a quick question in regards to that, what are some of the differences, I guess, why so much focus on cancer drugs versus heart disease.

I know looking at some slides and some things that you had posted, I think you said it was like a three to one difference in the amount of money that was spent.

Is there a reason for that rationale?

I think I did a good research and I have interviewed many people in the leading organization that is sponsoring the cancer field.

There was quite a bit government incentive behind the development of precision medicine for oncology.

So there was also quite a bit significant amount of investment behind the development of precision medicine.

in the United States especially, and also Europe, that was backed by the government incentives so that the risk of the investors who came and play with the development of the drugs reduced.

So the significant investments helped lower the risk of taking the risk of a drug development in the cancer.

This was one side of the picture.

So more investors were eager to come in and play and invest and because some of the risk was taken away and reimbursement of the drugs were really much more easier And there was a schedule and structure has been established by the leaders who wants to bring the precision medicine.

And there is a scientific factor.

The other element is that you can take a biopsy from the human patient that is in the situation.

And if you are trying to develop a drug for a dead group of patients, you can look into the drug's effectiveness to the tumor that is taken through the biopsy.

And if shrinking the tumor, if it is effectively regressing the tumor, then there is an effectiveness.

And if it is not toxic to the individual duration of the time, they were looking into how to develop that.

And also not every cancer drug can be given to everybody who has the same cancer disease, they were able to develop small population and they were able to develop the drugs for cancer for a smaller populations.

So the clinical trials was smaller and then it was supported.

So many, many drugs came.

into the market for cancer field because you can take a sample biopsy directly from the patient.

In the heart area, to take a sample from your heart, to cut a piece of your heart is not a very desirable situation.

So new technologies now, which we have already about more than 10 years, I think 19 years, we can create your heart outside through the stem cells, through the blood or urine sample.

And so your disease model can actually be created outside through the population that drug will be developed.

patient-specific samples, three-dimensional, can be developed so that just like cancer, we can actually create the subpopulations that heart failure has, and we can create this different type of drugs that is most effective for that sub-depth population.

For example, you might have a heart failure, but you may not have the fibrosis on your heart.

But if you have a fibrosis, it's even much difficult condition like heart failure, preserved ejection fraction.