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Cardinal Health’s vision for precision healthcare in the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry
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Overview
Tune in to hear Cardinal Health’s President of Nuclear and Precision Health Solutions, Mike Pintek, discuss the potential of nuclear medicine and theranostics advancements in precision healthcare. Topics include:
- How nuclear imaging is being used to provide better insights into the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and new treatment therapies going forward
- Advancing strategic sourcing to strengthen the supply chain by enhancing operational resiliency
- Supporting access to new products and advancing precision healthcare, including the focus on theranostics strategy
Topics: healthcare, supply chain, nuclear medicine, Alzheimer’s disease, Theranostics Advancement, precision health, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, molecular imaging, radiopharmaceuticals, strategy
Episode transcript
Find episode transcript below.
00:00:04:20 Welcome to Next in Health podcast, I'm Jenny Colapietro, PwC’s Vice Chair for Health Industries working across Pharmaceuticals, MedTech, Payers and Providers.
IGOR BELOKRINITSKY:
00:00:14:11 And I'm Igor Belokrinitsky, a Principal with PwC Strategy&, where I help leading health organizations with their strategies and operating models.
00:00:23:24 And today we're really excited to welcome Mike Pintek, who's a President of Nuclear & Precision Health Solutions at Cardinal Health. Welcome, Mike.
MIKE PINTEK:
00:00:32:06 Well, thank you, Jenny and Igor. I really appreciate you having me today.
IGOR BELOKRINITSKY:
00:00:36:05 Mike, we're delighted to have you today. And Jenny and I in the past have talked a fair bit about our outlook for this year and beyond for Pharma Life Sciences focusing in particular on the coming innovations and new modalities and the promise that technology such as personalized medicine and radiotherapy hold for us. So that's why we're excited to have you to tell us what's happening on the front lines of these innovations.
00:01:04:24 So welcome to the podcast and I wonder if you would start by just introducing yourself. Tell us about your career path and how you ended up in the role that you're in today?
MIKE PINTEK:
00:01:14:18 Yeah, it's a really exciting time to be in nuclear medicine, especially with the impact that it's having on real patients today and the future it holds for tomorrow, Igor.
00:01:26:18 I'm privileged to lead Nuclear & Precision Health Solutions at Cardinal Health as their President. Just a little bit of background, I also serve on the Board of Directors for the Cardinal Health Foundation, the Council on Radionuclide and Radiopharmaceuticals, and as an Advisory Board Member for the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging for their Value Initiative, Industry Alliance.
00:01:47:18 And especially in those key industry groups, we work to address challenges such as around reimbursement, guideline updates and changes, supply chain challenges and patient education and advocacy to help advance the benefit for patients moving forward.
00:02:02:15 Prior to Cardinal Health, I do have broad health care experience and leadership experience. I began my career in consumer health care with SmithKline Beecham, which is now GlaxoSmithKline. I spent more than 20 years in diagnostics and life science research with Abbott Laboratories, Ventana Medical Systems, Roche and Luminex Corporation and then more than eight years in pharmaceuticals now with Cardinal Health.
00:02:28:22 I've always been driven for results in having a positive lasting impact on people's lives. And that is why I have always been passionate about health care and serving others as a leader. And I've been blessed to work for some of the most influential and impactful leaders in the broader health care industry during my career.
00:02:47:22 And really taking those experiences, learning from both success and failure to find my true North in terms of the leader I aspire to be, which is one of high integrity, mission driven, accountable, inclusive and authentic for the team that I lead and the impact that we have on real patients and people. So that's just a little bit about my background and how I came to be President at Cardinal Health.
JENNY COLAPIETRO:
00:03:10:21 Thanks, Mike. Appreciate you sharing a prestigious career and background. For our listeners, we want to drill down into the topic of nuclear medicine, so perhaps you can just share a little bit: what is nuclear medicine and what role does Cardinal Health play in the space?
MIKE PINTEK:
00:03:26:14 Well, first, Jenny, that's a great question that I typically will get, and I would just start with nuclear medicine is truly the embodiment of Precision Health when you think about the just in time environment, we operate in with preparing, dispensing and delivering time critical radiopharmaceutical doses to the right patient at the right time before its half-life expires every single time.
00:03:51:04 Just to put how we fit within Cardinal more perspective, Cardinal Health more broadly distributes pharmaceuticals, manufactures and distributes medical and lab products, and also provides performance and data solutions to health care providers.
00:04:06:04 And at NPHS, we are unique within the walls of Cardinal Health and that we are a true pharmaceutical company within the walls of a very large pharmaceutical and medical products distribution company.
00:04:19:21 We are also at the forefront of shaping the future of Precision Health Care. There are about 20 million nuclear medicine patient procedures performed every year in the U.S. And at NPHS we manufacture, procure and dispense and deliver more than 12 million of those time critical patient specific doses annually and have also supported the majority of FDA approved radiopharmaceuticals.
00:04:46:15 Our vision is to really shape the future of Precision Health Care and Advance Precision Health Care, which is really focused on our theranostic strategy to expand in Precision Health Care by accelerating novel radiopharmaceuticals to market. We're very proud about the role we play in nuclear medicine and the important role that we play for patients and patients are at the center of everything we do.
IGOR BELOKRINITSKY:
00:05:13:27 Mike, that's fantastic and I want to continue this in going deeper into the discussion around nuclear medicine and its applications and specifically talk about Alzheimer's. And there's a lot of excitement when nuclear medicine started to be applied to diagnose diseases like Alzheimer's, but there weren't treatments for it yet necessarily.
00:05:33:27 But now, of course, there are NextGen therapies coming out to not just diagnose, but also treat Alzheimer's. And so given that, what do you see as the promise for nuclear imaging into the future?
MIKE PINTEK:
00:05:46:17 Well, this is an important and evolving area of medicine with a strong and broad social momentum. In fact, I would venture to say that everyone has been directly or indirectly impacted by this dreadful disease. While a definitive diagnosis for Alzheimer's disease is still only possible by autopsy following a patient's death.
00:06:08:17 New diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer's Association emphasize the importance of biomarkers such as Molecular Neuroimaging. And many scientists believe that changes in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s begin 10 to 20 years before the signs or symptoms of a disease even appear.
00:06:29:19 And nuclear imaging provides detailed pictures of what's happening inside the body at the molecular and cellular level, and really offer a unique opportunity to visualize each of the characteristic features of Alzheimer's. Researchers today are exploring the use of radio diagnostics to not only help diagnose Alzheimer's disease early in the disease process and progression. They're also looking at ways to differentiate Alzheimer's disease from other types of dementia.
00:06:58:14 They're looking at ways they can use radio diagnostics to monitor the progression of the disease and determine the effectiveness of new therapies and the impact that those new therapies are having along with that progression, and to gain a better understanding of Alzheimer's disease, including its causes and progression. All of this will help to provide better insights into the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and new treatment therapies going forward.
00:07:23:02 Now, we see the promise and potential of new therapeutics to enhance the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and remain fully committed to supporting this area of medical innovation through our comprehensive radio pharmacy network.
00:07:37:02 Today, we're supporting this effort as pet diagnostics are used in clinical trials settings for novel therapeutics and development in this area and our pet manufacturing centers and radio pharmacy support that effort today.
00:07:52:26 Moving forward, we're going to continue to monitor the progress of Alzheimer's therapeutic pipeline, and we're investing in our own pet manufacturing network to support the adoption of new transformational patient treatments. So again, this is a very important area for us. It's an evolving area and one that we continue to stay very close to.
JENNY COLAPIETRO:
00:08:13:26 Thank you, Mike. That's great to hear about the advances that you're making in terms of this transformational treatment and just better helping to diagnose and progress the treatments on Alzheimer's. Like you said, I think we've all been impacted by that.
00:08:26:26 The other area that many of us have felt the impact of is cancer. And I know another development that we've seen is the additional investment by pharma in radiotherapeutic treatments for conditions like cancer and I know radiation to treat cancer has been an accepted standard for care for a long time. But Mike, what are you seeing that's different in the pipeline?
MIKE PINTEK:
00:08:47:28 Yeah, Jenny, let me start by just saying that nuclear medicine to what you alluded to, is experiencing a growth cycle and that's being driven by innovation in theranostics, which I think gets to your opening comments in the growth in this area. Just a moment on theranostics to give the audience maybe a little bit of background on this.
00:09:09:29 Theranostics includes both a diagnostic and a therapeutic used together to treat a very specific need tailored for each individual patient down to the cellular level.
00:09:21:29 And so to put this in perspective, take for example, a prostate cancer patient, theranostics allows the clinician to more precisely target and effectively treat for a better outcome. In some cases a curative outcome, in other cases a more meaningful improvement in the standard of living or extension of life.
00:09:44:17 Now, we at Cardinal Health, Nuclear & Precision Health Solutions have made a multimillion dollar investment in our Centre for Theranostics Advancement in Indianapolis, Indiana. And we're working together with companies at this facility today. And in doing so, we're going to be able to play a vital role in sustainably advancing cancer treatment for patients around the world.
00:10:07:17 Again, I would just say it's truly an exciting time to be in this industry with such an opportunity to positively impact patient lives. It's what really gets our entire team out of bed in the morning.
IGOR BELOKRINITSKY:
00:10:20:16 Very cool. And Mike, we've been talking about the medicine part of nuclear medicine. Let's talk a little bit about the nuclear part of nuclear medicine. And you need radioactive materials for these therapies, they decay. And so what are the nuances of producing these therapies and supplying them to the market that are driven particularly by the nuclear part of this?
MIKE PINTEK:
00:10:45:02 Yeah, you're spot on, Igor. And to your point about the nuances or uniqueness of radiopharmaceuticals, there are some key differences to be mindful of when comparing a traditional, let's just call it oral pill, pharmaceutical drug and a radiopharmaceutical. The first you touched on is shelf life and using your melting ice cube example radiopharmaceuticals decayed constantly that can be within hours or days, just like a melting ice cube.
00:11:16:21 And we operate in a true just in time environment because of that. The second area is a regulatory landscape. We operate in a much more complex regulatory landscape. Not only are we governed by the FDA and U.S. Pharmacopeia, we're also governed by State Boards of Pharmacy. And each of those State Boards of Pharmacy can have slightly different regulations, which can vary state by state.
00:11:44:17 We're also overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in addition to other regulatory bodies, such as the Agreement State Radioactive Materials Agency, the EPA, Department of Transportation, OSHA, TSA and Homeland Security. So as one might expect when working with radioactive materials and radiopharmaceuticals in the nuclear medicine, we are very heavily regulated and that is also a key difference. And the final key difference is that there are specialized requirements for patient administration.
00:12:21:14 For example, patient administration requires specialized physician and staff training. You need to have an authorized user that can administer the radiopharmaceutical drug. And you also - the site in which the radiopharmaceutical drug is administered, it’s required to have a radioactive materials license for that facility to be able to operate as well.
00:12:46:14 And so between shelf life regulatory landscape and the specialized requirements for patient administration, those are all specific differences between a radiopharmaceutical and a traditional oral pharmaceutical drug that you would get a prescription for and pick up at your local pharmacy.
JENNY COLAPIETRO:
00:13:04:28 Mike, I think if we look back ten years ago, there were questions about the future of nuclear medicine. You know, due to a variety of reasons - isotopes, shortages, other dynamics. But fast forward today, and while the vibe seems totally different, as you said, nuclear medicine is definitely in a growth cycle and it's exciting to hear just about the advancements, the current day applicability and the innovation that it's driving.
00:13:25:20 Mike, as we wrap this up, can you leave our listeners with what makes you the most excited about the future of nuclear medicine?
MIKE PINTEK:
00:13:31:18 Yeah, well, I would start with the fact that this is again a really exciting time for nuclear medicine and the impact that it's having on real patient lives today and what's coming forward. Innovations are changing the nuclear health industry almost every day. In some cases, again, nuclear medicine has the ability to treat diseases that were once considered not treatable, significantly improving the lives of patients.
00:13:58:10 And I have never been more bullish about the bright future that we have ahead of us for patients, for our customers, and for Nuclear & Precision Health Solutions at Cardinal Health.
IGOR BELOKRINITSKY:
00:14:10:04 Well, Mike, thanks so much for that burst of passion and enthusiasm and optimism about the future of health. We're all about what's Next in Health here on the podcast. And this is a fantastic glimpse into the future that you're building today with your team already. So thanks for joining us on the podcast today.
MIKE PINTEK:
00:14:30:25 Well, thank you, Igor and Jenny, for having me. It's been a pleasure.
IGOR BELOKRINITSKY:
00:14:34:25 For more on these topics and other health industry insights driven by policy, innovation and care delivery changes, please subscribe to our podcast and be sure to listen to prior episodes as well. Until next time, this has been Next in Health.
ANNOUNCER:
00:14:53:22 This podcast is brought to you by PwC. All rights reserved. PwC refers to the U.S. member firm or one of its subsidiaries or affiliates and may sometimes refer to the PwC Network. Each member firm is a separate legal entity.
00:15:07:05 Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details. This podcast is for general information purposes only and should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional advisors.
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