The healthcare benefits of open source AI and collaboration
Fanny Sie talks about going from clinician-researcher to business school, cross-company collaboration on data sharing, and using AI data points for better diagnoses (800 words, 4 minutes)
Fanny Sie’s career has been anything but predictable, but her winding professional path has been marked by one constant: a passion for improving patients’ lives.
As featured recently on the NPC Podcast from the National Pharmaceutical Congress, Sie discussed her remarkable journey to advancing personalized medicine through data analytics. She now leverages proprietary AI to usher in a new era of tailored treatments for once-elusive diseases as Head of AI and Emerging Technology, External Collaboration, and M&A Partnering of Roche Global Informatics.
However, winding the road, Sie’s unwavering dedication to elevating health outcomes through technology led her to the frontlines of biomedicine breakthroughs. Her inspirational career bridges sectors and specialties but focuses on using AI’s potential to comprehend patients as uniquely as the illnesses they battle.
As the daughter of two clinicians, she recalls how dinner conversations often revolved around medicine and how to help people get better. “I went into clinic research as a radiation therapist,” she said. “I was at Princess Margaret [Hospital in Toronto] for about eight years treating patients for cancers all over the body.”
After years of clinical research, Sie [pictured below] enrolled in business school even though she had never been interested in business. Sie then went on to gain industry experience by working for different companies, including a Swedish company that deployed novel technologies around tumour targeting and radiation oncology. She implemented digital solutions like image credits, platforms, and EMRs worldwide. “Then I went into diagnostics,” she said.
Sie also discussed cross-company collaboration on data sharing during the pandemic. She said companies had to purposely dissolve all the walls between them to survive those uncertain times. “We created an ecosystem potluck where everybody would contribute, and we were going to try and create analytics to solve capacity management issues for Canada and the world,” she said. She noted that that project led her to understand the value of open data truly.
Sie also noted that AI data points can be used for improved diagnoses. “Our particular target in looking at diagnosis is being able to diagnose people better and more accurately,” she said. Biopsies are one example of how AI can help improve diagnosis. She said biopsies are definitive but not something that can be done on a repeated basis due to the high costs and how uncomfortable they are for patients. “If we’re able to extract data from people such as their respiratory patterns, the way they look on video, the way that they speak, the way they walk, and we’re able to take those patterns and extract a risk profile of a person potentially having a chronic condition, then we potentially can input prevention methods so that they never get to that complex stage.”
THIS WEEK 01/16/24
The U.S. FDA approved Ligand Pharmaceuticals’ berdazimer topical gel (Zelsuvmi) for treating molluscum contagiosum in patients one year and older.
Merck announced the U.S. FDA approved Keytruda, Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy, combined with chemoradiotherapy for treating patients with FIGO (International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics) 2014 Stage III-IVA cervical cancer.
The U.S. FDA approved Ionis Pharmaceuticals and AstraZeneca’s eplontersen (Wainua) for the treatment of the polyneuropathy of hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis in adults.
GC Biopharma Corp announced that the U.S. FDA has approved immune globulin intravenous, human-stwk (Alyglo) formerly referred to as GC5107, for the treatment of patients aged 17 years and older with primary humoral immunodeficiency..
LISTEN UP
In season 11 of the NPC Podcast, Andrea Schwarz, Commercial Lead in Canada at BeiGene Canada, gives insights into launching a commercial team during the pandemic, being at a company that focuses solely on oncology, and providing opportunities for the next generation of pharma. Hear her in conversation with podcast hosts Mitch Shannon, Jim Shea and Mark McElwain.
HEALTHBIZ REWIND
This feature of NPC Healthbiz Weekly looks back at some of the most insightful moments from previous NPC Podcast episodes. In Healthbiz Rewind, you’ll read bold life sci predictions made during the renowned “Prognostication Korner” segment of the NPC Podcast.
Dr. Karen Lee
President and CEO
Parkinson Canada
Toronto
Season 03, episode 01
Listen to this episode here
What should the pharma industry focus on? What must they do to help build an ecosystem and work with health charities? (This episode was recorded in January of 2021)
We want to work with everybody from my lens and where I sit. I want to hear [everybody] because we all have the same goals. We’re not competitors. I would say tap the shoulder of the disease state you’re working on with a charity. I know they probably want to hear from you and that we can collectively be a stronger voice together. I think that’s the piece that has been missing for many years. We went off and did our things but always kept an eye on one another. As these new regulations come into play, we all feel that the patient’s voice and the patients are not being heard in the right way. So, I think collectively, together, we can be stronger.
NEXT WEEK
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