When your life is literally on the line, you want to know that every possible avenue has been explored. This is Private Health’s mission and expertise—leaving no stone unturned. Thanks to rapid biomedical advances, cancer patients today have far better diagnostic and treatment options than ever before. And yet, the pace of change and narrow application makes it difficult to know how to take advantage of such opportunities.
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Thanks to our deep cancer expertise and long-standing relationships with the world’s leading cancer experts, our clients regularly benefit from the latest developments in molecular diagnostics, genomic sequencing, targeted therapies, immunotherapy, less invasive surgery, clinical trials and other advances.
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We have a rigorous identification and evaluation process that enables us to constantly source the most relevant biomedical advances and current, evidence-based treatments for our clients.
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\n\nThrough the intensive efforts of our scientific research teams, we identify effective or promising new treatment options for our patients globally – both inside and outside of the U.S. Because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can have restrictive policies that make it difficult for patients to gain access to promising but experimental treatments, Private Health has established close relationships with treatment centers in countries where it is possible to gain “compassionate access” to such treatments.
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For example, because German government regulations allow such programs, we have formed therapeutic and research collaborations with several German physician-scientists, which enables our clients to obtain seamless access to therapies not available inside the U.S.
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Example #1: Personalized Cancer Vaccine
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Personalized medicine has revolutionized cancer treatment. Understanding the unique molecular cancer genome mutations has enabled the development of drugs that can specifically target those cancer genome mutations. This is the just the beginning of creating more personalized, targeted treatments for cancer patients. Although the effectiveness of cancer immuno-therapy is revolutionizing cancer treatment in new ways, most of these treatments are “one-size-fits-all” approaches, using single or dual drug combinations to help increase the body’s own immune response to the cancer. More patient-specific, personalized cancer immune-therapy approaches may produce even more robust and effective immune responses in the cancer patient.
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Though in the early stages of development, it is now possible to create personalized therapeutic vaccines that specifically targets an individual’s unique tumor.
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When one of our esophageal cancer clients had his cancer return after undergoing chemotherapy and surgery, he contacted Private Health to help him identify treatment options beyond traditional chemotherapy. (The prior chemotherapy treatment produced very significant side-effects including numbness and tingling in his feet that had not resolved.) He wanted to optimize the latest advances in treating cancer with immuno-therapy.
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We assembled a team of world-leading cancer immuno-therapy experts to discuss all available non-chemo treatment options. Although some experts recommended using a combination of FDA-approved cancer immunotherapy drugs, they acknowledged that there was not great data supporting the use of those treatments in esophageal cancer. Others proposed creating a personalized cancer immuno-therapy regimen using the client’s own tumor tissue to create a therapeutic vaccine, which appealed to our client.
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Private Health Management contacted its collaborators in Germany and other parts of Europe to discuss creating a personalized vaccine for our client. Through a series of video-teleconferences, the framework of the patient’s immune-therapy protocol was created. This included a plan to harvest the client’s own immune cells (dendritic cells), “priming” those immune cells with the antigens from the client’s own tumor (to help “train” those cells to target the cancer) and re-injecting them back into the client. The plan also included injection of an oncolytic virus, use of an immune checkpoint inhibitor drug at a very low dose, and focal hyperthermia. After careful immune testing, refinements were made to the plan to further customize the treatment regimen.
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Our client has experienced a very significant treatment response from this customized regimen, far beyond what would have been expected with other available treatments such as already-approved cancer immunotherapy drugs and/or chemotherapies.
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Example #2: Theranostic Treatment
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Theranostics is a branch of medicine in which diagnostic testing is used to identify therapeutic targets. Biologic nanoparticles are typically designed to attach to certain receptors on cancer cells. When those biologic nanoparticles (such as a monoclonal antibody) are conjugated with a radioactive isotope, it enables modern medical imaging technologies to easily confirm the presence (or absence) of the target receptor. If the target receptor is confirmed to be present on the cancer cells, that same biologic nanoparticle can be conjugated with molecules that will destroy the target cancer cell, such as therapeutic radiation isotopes, chemotherapy drugs or other cell-killing agents. This provides a highly-specific and targeted approach to killing cancer cells without harming normal, healthy cells.
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This approach is being effectively deployed by some of Private Health Management’s international collaborators to effectively treat patients with advanced prostate cancer that has spread to the bones. Some of our clients undergoing this treatment have had cancer metastases literally “melt away” on medical imaging scans. While this treatment is not a cure, it has become a significant additional tool in the arsenal of treatment options for patients with advanced prostate cancer for clients whose cancer cells express the target receptor.
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Similar treatment success is being seen in patients with certain neuroendocrine cancers.
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Private Health Management has been arranging theranostic treatments for its clients for years – long before this approach to treatment was known by even most of the top experts in the U.S.
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\n\nExample #1: Autologous Stem Cell Therapy
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The collection of mesenchymal stem from an individual for growth or expansion in a laboratory is a promising new stem cell treatment. This approach results in the expansion of the collected cells (approximately 100 – 200,000 stem cells) to 2 – 400 million stem cells. Once expanded, these stem cells can either be immediately re-infused into the client or cryopreserved in a sterile laboratory for future use.
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While the U.S. FDA allows for the harvesting of stem cells and the immediate re-infusion of the patient’s own stem cells within the same day as an in-office medical procedure, the U.S. FDA does not allow the re-infusion of stem cells that have been grown or expanded outside of the body. Therefore, while a patient’s own stem cells may be harvested and expanded within the U.S., the reinfusion of those expanded stem cells is not acceptable within the U.S. (The U.S. FDA considers this to be an unapproved drug.) To allow patients to receive re-infusions of their expanded stem cells, clinics outside the U.S. have been established where the expanded stems cell can be transported and reinfused.
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While expanded autologous stem cell infusions are not a cure-all, certain patients are experiencing significantly positive results after treatment with expanded autologous stem cells.
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Private Health Management has developed collaborations with some of the leading stem cell therapeutics companies in the world.
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