In a recent appearance on the podcast MPN Forum Live, two representatives from Massive Bio explained how the company is helping cancer patients gain access to all their treatment options, including clinical trials.

MPN Forum Live, which Jeremy Smith hosts, is a podcast for patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms, or MPNs, and caregivers of people with these blood cancers. MPNs include myelofibrosis, polycythemia vera, and essential thrombocythemia. MPN Forum Live frequently presents patient stories, but Smith also features interviews with experts on managing and treating MPNs.

For the sixth episode of MPN Forum Live, Smith welcomed Czerny Cohen, vice president of clinical operations at Massive Bio, and Fiona Evans, the company’s lead patient relations coordinator. Smith opened the conversation with a blunt question: “Who the heck is Massive Bio?”

Evans explained that Massive Bio connects cancer patients to clinical trials using proprietary technology powered by artificial intelligence, known as SYNERGY-AI. This platform scans thousands of studies in the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s Clinicaltrials.gov database to identify only the studies that precisely match a patient’s specific criteria. Evans conceded that patients can access and pore over the same database in search of eligible clinical trials, “but it’s a challenge to do that.” Moreover, she noted that busy doctors may not have the time or resources to search for clinical trials for patients interested in receiving treatment beyond the standard of care. “We offer a concierge service that not only provides information to the patient and the physician, but we help the patient from start to finish—from when they reach out to us to when they enroll in that trial” and beyond, said Evans.

During a far-ranging conversation, Smith wondered: “When should patients start looking for a trial?” Cohen stated emphatically that cancer patients should start considering and looking for clinical trials at the time of diagnosis. “When you’re diagnosed, what you really want is to have all the available options in front of you. You don’t want just 50 to 75 percent. You want to be able to decide on your care based on complete information, whether that’s the standard of care or a clinical trial therapy option,” said Cohen. “That’s a big part of what we’re trying to do as a company: Increasing that access and empowering you with that type of information.”

This episode of MPN Forum Live originally aired on July 12, 2022. Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mpn-forum-live/id1618536833?i=1000569691171

MPN Forum Live Podcast