Are We There Yet? NantHealth CMO Discusses Why It’s Time for Precision Medicine in Practice
05/07/19
Guest Dr. Sandeep “Bobby” Reddy, Chief Medical Officer of NantHealth joined us to talk about how he became an early adopter of precision medicine and the opportunities that exist to present its economic benefits.
Listen to the full episode above and download the full PDF transcript here.
Dr. Reddy says that he became an early adopter of precision medicine by luck. He happened to be working in Southern California in what he calls “the biotech corridor” where many precision medicine platforms are developed. This gave him the opportunity to see precision medicine in action or, as he puts it, to “look under the hood and see what actually is happening in the laboratory and you compare that with, say, what's happening in your local pathology laboratory in the hospital.”
His takeaway was that precision medicine is much the same as processes already taking place in the hospitals, but just with newer instruments—PCR or sequencing for example. This viewpoint made it easier for him to apply precision medicine in his own work.
After helping launch Response Genetics and consulting for companies like Biotheranostics and Genoptix, Dr. Reddy developed a broad view about when and how to use precision medicine. He admits that there are types of tumors for which it is not particularly effective but believes there are also many examples of precision medicine being applied effectively. He adds that while precision medicine is still in its infancy, there are times when precision medicine and evidence-based medicine meet harmoniously to answer questions that otherwise could not be answered. His suggestion is that providers begin by layering precision medicine into evidence-based approaches for improved outcomes.
Asked whether or not he thought payers should routinely pay for precision medicine tests and treatments, Dr. Reddy says that the medical community has not done a good job of showing that new technology will benefit the patient. He believes that there must be more convincing evidence before they will acknowledge and reimburse for the benefits precision medicine brings.
Our discussion with Dr. Reddy was an eye-opener in terms of how far we’ve come with precision medicine and how far we still have to go. If you are still on the fence about applying precision medicine in your practice, this episode will definitely provide food for thought.
Listen to the full episode above.
Download the full transcript here (pdf).
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About Our Guest
Sandeep “Bobby” Reddy, MD
Chief Medical Officer, NantHealth
Clinical Associate Professor Geffen/UCLA School of Medicine Dr. Reddy joined NantHealth in December of 2016 as Senior Executive Director of Medical Affairs and currently serves as Chief Medical Officer. His responsibilities include overseeing education, outreach, clinical development programs, and clinical trials for GPS, NantHealth's proprietary revolutionary pan-omic cancer analytic platform. Prior to that, he was Chief Medical Officer at Caris Life Sciences. His executive and medical oversight has produced over 100 abstracts at major medical conferences and over 30 peer-reviewed publications since 2014.
Previously, Dr. Reddy was Chief of Staff at Los Alamitos Medical Center and actively practicing clinical hematology and oncology. Simultaneously he has held an adjunct faculty position at the Geffen/UCLA School of Medicine as a clinical instructor at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where he was awarded the distinguished teaching award for clinical faculty in 2006. He is a member of the Los Angeles Biomedical Institute, ASCO, IASLC and current SWOG investigator. His medical training includes fellowship training in hematology and medical oncology and therapeutics research at the City of Hope, and Internal Medicine residency at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Dr. Reddy received his MD from the Geffen/UCLA School of Medicine after receiving his BS in biomedical sciences at the University of California, Riverside.