The Value of Openness: The PatientsLikeMe Blog

Last week, PatientsLikeMe Co-Founder Jamie Heywood had the honor of speaking at the Personalized Medicine World Conference (PMWC), a two-day event held at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.  His presentation was entitled “Patient Driven Convergence of Clinical Discovery and Care.”  In recognition of the conference’s venue as well as the role that technology plays in personalized medicine, we decided to share some of the “tweets” that Jamie’s talk generated on Twitter.

Ruby Gadelrab (@DivaBiotech) tweeted:  “James Heywood, PatientsLikeMe, starts presentation with very poignant picture of his brother suffering from ALS.”

Ron Ribitzky, MD (@RonRibitzkyMD) tweeted:  “James Heywood of PatientsLikeMe at PMWC: Industry develops systems that can impact if people live or die, but not giving it to them.”

Shirley Wu (@shwu) tweeted: “Heywood of PatientsLikeMe:  At events like this, I often see tech searching 4 problems, not well-defined problems searching 4 solutions.”

Ribozyme (@ribozyme) tweeted:  “JH PatientsLikeMe:  If they (were to) add genotype data it would be a huge phenotype-genotype correlation study.”

Daniel Kraft, MD (@daniel_kraft) tweeted:  “Talk from @PatientsLikeMe.  Reduced ER visits by 18%. ‘Predict the future so we can change it.’”

Are you part of the Twitterverse too?  Follow us @PatientsLikeMe today.  We’re just 25 people shy of reaching 5,000 followers!

The holidays are a time for thinking about everything you hope and wish for in the coming year.  They’re also a time for appreciating everything you already have.  As our season’s greetings to you, we wanted to share a wish expressed by each member of our management team.

“I wish for every patient and family dealing with illness to know that they are not alone and that we are all in this together.” – Ben Heywood, President and Co-Founder

“I hope Santa brings you all your health data and that you will share it with other patients like you!” – Paul Wicks, PhD, Research & Development Director

“I wish for people to have the most happy, healthy, and joyous holidays filled with the unparalleled love from those who matter in their lives.” – David S. Williams III, Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Business Development

“My wish for patients everywhere is that they continue to learn about their chronic conditions and keep updated on the latest treatments from multiple sources.” – Robert Palladino, Chief Financial Officer

“All of us at PatientsLikeMe wish you and those you love a holiday of joy and grace.” – Jamie Heywood, Chairman and Co-Founder

Happy Holidays!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Nonprofit and “Not Just for Profit” Announce Collaboration at PartneringForCures Event

NEW YORK, NY - November 7, 2011 - Today, PatientsLikeMe and R.A.R.E Project, a nonprofit advocacy and support group for patients with all rare diseases, announce a new partnership to find and connect 1 million rare disease patients to share and learn everything possible about their conditions.  The organizations, co-presenting at the PartneringForCures event today in New York, are launching an international rare disease awareness campaign in 2012.

“There are 35 million patients in the U.S. with 7,000+ rare diseases and we want to find them, connect them and support them in sharing and learning by their specific disease and across all rare diseases,” says Dean Suhr, Chief Innovation and Community Development Officer at R.A.R.E.  “We’re excited to work with PatientsLikeMe because their open patient registry allows patients to contribute to research, while getting immediate benefits, like improved quality of life, from sharing this information with others.”

The goal of this collaboration between R.A.R.E and PatientsLikeMe, an online health community that started in 2005 for rare disease patients and is now open to everyone, is to allow for better shared learning and acceleration of discovery by rapidly connecting patients to researchers, companies, nonprofits and patients like them. The partners will combine resources to provide patients with the opportunity to make online and local in-person connections, engage nonprofits and local specialists, and contribute their health data to the open patient registry at PatientsLikeMe. Unlike other registries, PatientsLikeMe allows patients to query the data to compare their medical data to others with similar diseases, symptoms, or therapies so they can also compare their data across other diseases.

“The key to accelerating research for any patients, although particularly powerful for those with rare conditions, is to have efficient access to well characterized patient populations willing to be part of research,” adds Jamie Heywood, Co-founder and Chairman of PatientsLikeMe. “It’s terrifying to think you’re alone and manage your rare illness with a doctor who might not have ever seen another patient like you. We will change that.”

For more about the R.A.R.E Project, including current awareness campaigns, go to: http://rareproject.org.  For patients and nonprofits that want to join PatientsLikeMe, go to http://www.patientslikeme.com.

ABOUT R.A.R.E PROJECT

The R.A.R.E. Project exists to raise rare disease awareness, unify and empower a vibrant global rare disease community, and fund innovations to support ‘in-their-lifetime’ rare disease research.

ABOUT PATIENTSLIKEME

PatientsLikeMe® (www.patientslikeme.com) is the world’s leading online health data sharing platform. PatientsLikeMe® creates new knowledge by charting the real-world course of disease through the shared experiences of patients. While patients interact to help improve their outcomes, the data they provide helps researchers learn how these diseases act in the real world and accelerate the discovery of new, more effective treatments. [Follow company news on www.twitter.com/PatientsLikeMe and http://blog.patientslikeme.com]

Last night, the PatientsLikeMe team came together for a great cause: the “White Coat Affair” gala benefit in support of the ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI).  Founded by PatientsLikeMe Co-Founder and Chairman Jamie Heywood in 1999, ALS TDI is the world’s most advanced research laboratory dedicated to ALS.

Held the night before the institute’s 7th Annual Leadership Summit, the gala event included the presentation of the first-ever “ALS TDI Lou Gehrig Award” to US Congressman Michael Capuano as well as special recognition for ALS TDI Chairman of the Board Augie Nieto, who has raised more than $30 million for the institute since 2007.

Congratulations to ALS TDI on 12 years of cutting-edge research and leadership.

This weekend, MIT is hosting the first H@cking Medicine conference and PatientsLikeMe is proud to be a sponsor. The hacking encouraged here isn’t malicious, rather, it refers to a passionate subculture of computer programmers who believe in sharing, openness, and innovation (among other things).  Those are three concepts near and dear to us here at PatientsLikeMe.

The goal of the conference is to inspire new ideas and create new relationships so that everyone will leave invigorated and excited about improving healthcare.  According to the H@cking Medicine website, “By using available tools in unconventional ways, we aim to revolutionize delivery of care, empower patients, and design new models of care. Typically, healthcare innovation is painfully slow and, even worse, often increases the cost.  We can make a difference by creating cost-effective solutions without waiting for fundamental advances in science.”

To kick off the event on the first day, our own Jamie Heywood (keynote) as well as other leaders in the health care field will inspire audience members with ways to find and learn from the best use of openly shared data. The second day is dedicated to team hacking, and gives coders a practical look at what can be done with the available resources.

Read more about this subculture of hackers on Wikipedia and follow the H@cking Medicine conference updates on their website and Twitter.

“We are standing on the edge of a new information age, and this new information age is going to clash with our existing understanding of concepts such as privacy and how we think about healthcare data and what should be done with it.” - Jamie Heywood

PatientsLikeMe Chairman Jamie Heywood recently traveled to Zurich, Switzerland, to speak at the Personalized Medicine Symposium, sponsored by the Life Science Zurich Business Network. Tune in below for a video recap that features Jamie’s comments about rethinking the concept of privacy in order to personalize as well as democratize healthcare. “Humans are collectivists,” he argues. “We want to help each other. It’s intrinsic to human nature.”

Look for Jamie’s comments to begin around the 3:01 mark.

“I got this call from my brother Stephen, and he said the news doesn’t look good. At that point, he’d been through enough processes to know what that meant – he had ALS. So I began this journey with my brother and my family…. We were thinking there had to be a way to make this about the patient. But it started like everyone else. You get that phone call, and your life changes.” - Jamie Heywood, Co-Founder

Recently, we launched a new and improved About Us page that included a short video about our company history. Now, we’re pleased to unveil a longer, more in-depth video that allows you to hear our founding story from four PatientsLikeMe executives and learn what drew each of them to become a part of our groundbreaking concept.

Tune in below to hear where it all started and why, five years later, we’re committed to continuing the journey we’re all on – as a company, as patients and as family members of those affected by disease.

You can also watch this insightful piece (~15 minutes) in three smaller segments:  Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.

“Today is a day of massive celebration of what health innovators have done,” said US Department of Health & Human Services’ Chief Technology Officer Todd Park this morning as he welcomed everyone to the 2nd Annual Health Data Initiative Forum (or “Health Data-Palooza,” as Park called it). The goal? To create “a self-propelled, open ‘ecosystem of innovation’ using data to improve health,” he said.

Naturally, the open sharing of health data to help patients is something we’re very passionate about at PatientsLikeMe. In fact, it’s our mission. That’s why my brother and fellow co-founder Jamie got up on stage at today’s event to show just how PatientsLikeMe can do that. As an invited speaker, he unveiled our new Clinical Trials feature, which provides customized, real-time listings from ClinicalTrials.gov to help patients find clinical trials that are right for them as well as help companies find patients who are right for their clinical trial.

In today’s press release about this new “matching” feature, Jamie says, “It’s difficult for patients to find trials and for investigators to find patients. We can help solve both of those problems by telling each of our 100,000+ patients what trials they’re eligible for and by showing each trial sponsor how many patients they can reach.”

Below is an infographic that shows the number of clinical trials in one selected region that are now listed on PatientsLikeMe and the many patients nearby who are eligible to take part in these research efforts. The goal, as we see it, is making the clinical trial matching process faster, easier and more accessible.

“Patients are giving us their data, and we need to honor that by doing something that advances their disease, their cause, their power in the world.” – Jamie Heywood

This week marks the fourth and final installment of our latest video series, which explores what the recent changes at PatientsLikeMe mean for you as well as the entire medical establishment. (Missed the first three interviews? Catch up on what PatientsLikeMe executives Ben Heywood, David S. Williams III and Paul Wicks had to say.)

In today’s video, PatientsLikeMe Co-Founder and Chairman Jamie Heywood talks about the next steps in realizing the goal of PatientsLikeMe: to help all patients determine how they can affect their health outcomes and live the longest, most productive lives possible. What will it take to do that? Tune in to hear his vision of how healthcare could evolve as quickly as technology, provided that the concept of shared data is fully embraced.

To keep up with all PatientsLikeMe videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel today.

May is ALS Awareness Month. To help spread the word about this progressive neurodegenerative condition, which affects approximately five out of every 100,000 people worldwide, we wanted to tell you a little bit about our patients with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).

Due to our founders’ personal experience with this disease, ALS was the very first condition to have a home at PatientsLikeMe when we launched in 2006.  Five years later, our ALS members now represent the largest ALS patient population in the world, capturing 10% of all newly diagnosed patients in the U.S.

Here are some quick facts about ALS, as reported by our members:

What is PatientsLikeMe’s ALS membership like?

• As of today, we have 4,446 patient members with ALS.
• 59% of our ALS members are male, and 41% are female.

What are the top treatments?

• Our ALS members report using over 1,500 treatments, including prescription drugs, medical devices, physical therapies, etc.
• The most widely used prescription drugs reported by our ALS members are Riluzole (Rilutek), Baclofen (Lioresal Oral) and Amitriptyline (Elavil).
• The top lifestyle modification reported by our ALS members is avoiding alcohol, while percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) is the number one procedure cited.
• The top three supplements reported by our ALS members are CoQ10, Vitamin E and Vitamin C.

What are the major symptoms?

• The five most common primary symptoms reported by our ALS members are Fatigue, Fasciculations, Stiffness/Spasticity, Anxious Mood and Pain.

What are ALS patients talking about?

• Some of the most popular topics “tagged” in our ALS forum discussions include experimental treatments such as Lithium Carbonate, Stem Cell Therapy and Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN).  Other hot issues include assistive technology, awareness and clinical trials.

Speaking of Lithium Carbonate, we are very proud of our patient-led research study on the drug that was published in the scientific journal Nature Biotechnology last month. The findings, which refuted a previous clinical trial, garnered a good deal of media coverage for not only showing the real-world effects of the drug (no impact on ALS disease progression was found) but also how patient-reported data can accelerate medical research.

Finally, to put a face on ALS, we’d like to share a current news story here in Massachusetts, where PatientsLikeMe is headquartered.  Former Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci talked about his ALS diagnosis for the first time this week on the nightly news show Chronicle.  We were honored to have been featured in the WCVB-TV piece, which included a segment on Stephen Heywood’s battle with ALS as well as an interview with PatientsLikeMe Co-Founder and Chairman Jamie Heywood.

Watch the full four-part piece (entitled “The Campaign of His Life”) to see how both Governor Cellucci and the Heywood family are fighting back against ALS.

“We’re just getting started on a long road to really impact your individual disease and your quality of life…”

Each week this month, we’ll be posting a video interview with a member of the PatientsLikeMe executive team.  You’ll hear from Ben Heywood, Jamie Heywood, David S. Williams and Paul Wicks, Ph.D. about what the recent changes to PatientsLikeMe mean for patients, research, industry and the entire medical establishment.

Today, listen in to hear what Ben has to say about why we’re on this “road,” what has been improved with the recent upgrades and how sharing your own health journey moves us forward.  You can also see last week’s video teaser here.

“What are the things that affect a patient’s safety? It’s everything - it’s not just whether the drug is good or bad, it’s the whole process.” –Jamie Heywood

Why does the healthcare industry need to shift from drug safety to patient safety? PatientsLikeMe Co-Founder and Chairman Jamie Heywood explains his view in this week’s edition of our podcast series entitled “A Look Ahead.”

No stranger to this topic, Jamie has written about patient safety on our blog before.  ”By using structured data collection tools within the PatientsLikeMe platform, overseen by a drug safety professional, industry partners can improve patient safety,” he wrote.

In this edition of PatientsLikeMeOnCall^TM, Jamie discusses the difference between drug safety and patient safety, why it is so important for the healthcare system to adapt more to patient safety and what this shift would mean for the future of healthcare.  He also makes the case for why pharmaceutical manufacturers need to follow up on any drug safety events when a new treatment has been developed.

To hear more, listen to Jamie’s full interview:

PatientsLikeMeOnCall™  is proud to present a new podcast series called “A Look Ahead.”  Through these dynamic podcasts, we will be diving into the major shifts PatientsLikeMe sees ahead for patients, patient care and patient/industry collaboration.

At the end of 2010, PatientsLikeMeOnCall released an episode called “The Patient Rules.” In this group podcast, we sat down with Co-Founders Ben and Jamie Heywood, Chief Marketing Officer David S. Williams III and R&D Director Paul Wicks PhD to discuss how far patients like you have come in sharing health information and driving the healthcare process.

In this new four-part series, we will again be talking to each of them about the future of the healthcare industry. What changes are ahead in 2011? And what role will you play? To get you geared up for this series, here is a quick preview clip from my interview with David Williams about the importance of patients and industry working together.

The series premiere for “A Look Ahead” launches this Friday, March 18, 2011, with an interview with Paul Wicks. Look for the other interviews to run every Friday for the next three weeks.  To tune in, subscribe to the series on our iTunes page or listen to any of our podcasts on our PodBean page.

The research team is very proud of how our team has grown in 2010 and the impact we’ve made in the academic community.  In 2010 alone, PatientsLikeMe and our work were mentioned in scientific literature more than 133 times.  All of this is because of what you share with us.

Yesterday, we highlighted some of the research work we’ve done in 2010 across our four newest communities.  Today, we’ll highlight our older communities.  Below is also a highlights reel of some of this work.

HIV

• Throughout 2010, we discussed the goal and benefits to measuring your quality of life (QoL). This concept of measuring QoL started in our HIV Community at the end of 2009. Earlier this year in a blog and podcast, Researcher Michael Massagli Ph.D. discussed some of the insights that are being shared by HIV patients through the QoL survey. For instance, we found that the average physical, mental and social well-being score of patients with a CD4 count below 200 is significantly lower than for those of you with a count above 200.

Parkinson’s Disease

• The Parkinson’s Community has always excelled in reporting their health status through the Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (or PDRS). When answering the questions on this scale, members often asked us: “Should I respond when my drugs are working and I’m at my best (’On’) or when my drugs aren’t working and I’m at my worst (’Off’)?” Back in October, we released a brand new feature in the PD community that allows you to rate your symptoms as either “On,” “Off”, or in both conditions so now you can see the effect of your medications for yourself.

Multiple Sclerosis

• We hear a lot from you about the difficulty of adhering to medication. Early last year, our research team developed a new rating scale for patients with MS to assess the difficulties of sticking to their medication. We presented findings at the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC), the main North American conference for MS specialist physicians, nurses, and researchers. The team is currently working on publishing these findings.

ALS

• Co-founder Jamie Heywood discussed our research into lithium in ALS at the TEDMED conference late in 2009. In early 2010, TEDMED released the video of his presentation where he shares our vision of the future of medicine. The team is currently working on publishing the lithium findings.
• PatientsLikeMe, in collaboration with researchers at Oxford University, discovered that when ALS patients get symptoms in their arms first, they’re most likely to get it in their dominant hand. This research was presented at the ALS MND Symposium and cited on this MND Research blog.
• We also collaborated with the Northeast ALS Consortium (NEALS) to examine the decision-making process that patients with ALS go through when considering whether or not to take part in research studies; this was published in the peer-reviewed journal Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Here’s a short video highlighting much of the research you’ve helped us do in 2010.

Finally, I want to recognize how our team has expanded this year to better focus on what matters to you most.  Some new additions include:

• Brant Chee, Ph.D. - a specialist in natural language processing and detecting drug safety data in patient reported text
• Kate Slawsky, MPH - an outcomes researcher helping to develop custom surveys for our partners and our platform
• Shivani Bhargava - a research assistant supporting the team in ensuring our platform holds high-quality data about our patients

Thank you all for having a voice in research. There’s so much being learned from what you are sharing every day, and we are excited about what 2011 will bring.