Speaker 1: Well, you might recall a November Bloomberg Business Week cover story, Tim,
Speaker 1: remember this, it was about the company twenty three and
Speaker 1: me and how it's looking to use all the genetic
Speaker 1: information that collects and able to make and sell its
Speaker 1: own therapy. So, you know, the world of genetic testing
Speaker 1: and using it as a diagnostic tool continues to grow
Speaker 1: and to really create new therapies. Yeah, far cry at
Speaker 1: least for that company from the original premise right of
Speaker 1: helping you identify where you're from. Well, this next guest
Speaker 1: has spent more than two decades in healthcare. She's president
Speaker 1: CEO of the genetic testing and genomic company. She's Katherine
Speaker 1: steulin Uh and, as I said, CEO of gene d X,
Speaker 1: and she's on the phone in Bethesda, Maryland. Catherine, so
Speaker 1: nice to have you here with Tim and myself. You know,
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about your company and what's
Speaker 1: going on when it comes to genomics and genetic testing
Speaker 1: being used to really develop therapies and improve the way
Speaker 1: we address healthcare. Certainly, and and I'm excited to share
Speaker 1: with you what I think is really a new era
Speaker 1: and her of delivering on the promise of the human
Speaker 1: genome project as well as UM something that we've been
Speaker 1: talking about quite a bit, which which is precision Medicine.
Speaker 1: UM gen d X was fun out of the n
Speaker 1: i H twenty years ago and really was known as
Speaker 1: a company that was who doctors relied on to the
Speaker 1: hardest to diagnose patients. But over time, our scientists have
Speaker 1: been quietly pioneering the next generation of genetic testing that
Speaker 1: looks deeply at the totality of the human genome to
Speaker 1: be able to provide a faster diagnosis for patients and
Speaker 1: in turn be able, based on the results of our
Speaker 1: genetic tests, be able to tell you what therapeutics might
Speaker 1: be able to help you get on a healthier path sooner. Well,
Speaker 1: help me understand where patients use this and at what
Speaker 1: point in their lives they use it, because up till now,
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't want to give away too
Speaker 1: much of my medical history. I'm talking on you know,
Speaker 1: national radio here, Uh, but my only encounter with genetic
Speaker 1: testing personally has has been when my wife got pregnant
Speaker 1: with our son, And I think that's where a lot
Speaker 1: of people first interact with it. When you know the
Speaker 1: person who's pregnant and in the partner get tested. But
Speaker 1: that was it for me that that's true for so
Speaker 1: many people. UM. Right now, genetic testing is being used
Speaker 1: in that setting. UM. You know, frequently when a woman
Speaker 1: is thinking about having a baby or she's pregnant, and
Speaker 1: she will still do a test, she and her partner
Speaker 1: will do a test called carrier screening. UM. But then
Speaker 1: what we're able to do on the other side, once
Speaker 1: there is hopefully a healthy baby, is be able to
Speaker 1: ensure that when there is a symptom um that that
Speaker 1: child may be displaying if God forbid, the babies in
Speaker 1: the neonates neonatal intense of care unit or as a toddler, UH,
Speaker 1: we're able to provide based on that baby's genome UM
Speaker 1: rapid information that helps get to a diagnosis, a definitive
Speaker 1: diagnosis sooner, which is critically important when you're thinking about
Speaker 1: neurological conditions that could be impassing that child and then
Speaker 1: getting them on that treatment. UM. The other time that
Speaker 1: people are utilizing genetic information often is when they have
Speaker 1: a cancer diagnosis. So right now it really is being
Speaker 1: used UM in the symptomatic setting. UM. But genetic information
Speaker 1: can actually be used in a preventive way UM to
Speaker 1: be able to get ahead of UM developing symptoms and
Speaker 1: being able to keep people healthy versus diagnosi disease. It's
Speaker 1: already in progress. So I think about things, you know, um, Katherine,
Speaker 1: that are just like diabetes, right, which is really we
Speaker 1: talk about pandemics, right, you know, it's really becoming a
Speaker 1: global pandemic in terms of the amount of people who
Speaker 1: have diet beats. How can we use genetic testing? How
Speaker 1: are we maybe already in terms of anticipating it or
Speaker 1: somehow getting better control of it, because it really just
Speaker 1: seems like it's out of control. So genetic testing right
Speaker 1: now is really best utilized UM and and setting such
Speaker 1: as cardiovascular disease and oncology, and the pediatric setting for
Speaker 1: neurological disorders or autism UM, as well as as you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, in the prenatal setting when when we're trying
Speaker 1: to assess risk when it comes to a pregnancy for
Speaker 1: for more common conditions that are metabolic in nature, like diabetes.
Speaker 1: There's still a lot of work that needs to be
Speaker 1: done from a technology standpoint to really help us better
Speaker 1: understand the specific role of genetics that might predisposite predispose
Speaker 1: somebody to to being uh, somebody who will have a
Speaker 1: more so beer condition. Um. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: work going into that. You'll hear in the future more
Speaker 1: about something called polygenic risk risk scores, which is for
Speaker 1: the broader um more common conditions like diabetes. UM. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's going to be on the horizon
Speaker 1: over the next five to ten years. We're still on
Speaker 1: the earlier stages for those sorts of conditions. Sit tight
Speaker 1: for a second. We've got to do a little bit
Speaker 1: of news, Katherine, but we'll come back and continue. Really
Speaker 1: interesting and curious about the medical community, the health insurance company,
Speaker 1: how they are increasingly embracing, uh, this era area when
Speaker 1: it comes to its helpfulness in terms of figuring out
Speaker 1: healthcare or or possibilities. What were you think, hey, And
Speaker 1: one interesting thing is talking to friends about, you know, Matt,
Speaker 1: that age where a lot of our friends are getting
Speaker 1: pregnant or worse, are having the second kid. Uh. We
Speaker 1: talked to some friends who had a second kid. They
Speaker 1: repeated the genetic testing again, even though they had done
Speaker 1: it ahead of time before their first baby. And they
Speaker 1: did that because the company had actually identified more genes
Speaker 1: in the two or three years since they had their
Speaker 1: previous baby. So you're it's just an acknowledgment of all
Speaker 1: the information that continues to come out. All right, we'll
Speaker 1: continue with Katherine Steulin. She is the CEO of gene
Speaker 1: d X, and we'll get to her once again in
Speaker 1: just a moment. Let's get right back to Katherine Steulin,
Speaker 1: the CEO of gen d X. It's a medical genetics company.
Speaker 1: It's got the largest clinical X own data set in
Speaker 1: the world. Katherine, I want to talk more about the
Speaker 1: business here because I think when it comes to products
Speaker 1: such as yours, the customer isn't necessarily the end patient.
Speaker 1: The customer is the provider who is prescribing it or
Speaker 1: who is actually UM telling the patient that they should
Speaker 1: get it. How do you how does that, how does
Speaker 1: that sales process work? And how do you get your
Speaker 1: product more in the hands of more providers? So it's
Speaker 1: it's a really important partnership that we have with a
Speaker 1: provider a patient as well as with a payer UM
Speaker 1: and and we very much believe that it is the
Speaker 1: most responsible approach to be working UM in that partnership
Speaker 1: because we're delivering information that is actionable UM, meaning we're
Speaker 1: providing a genetic report that is saying whether or not
Speaker 1: somebody may have a health condition that they may need to,
Speaker 1: you know, go undergo some sort of therapy for um
Speaker 1: or change another aspect of their life. So it's really
Speaker 1: important that we are working in partnership there. UM. The
Speaker 1: way that we work today is we we sell our
Speaker 1: testing directly to clinicians. Mainly this has been to medical geneticists,
Speaker 1: who are kind of the the experts expert when it
Speaker 1: comes to genetics, but we're seeing a broader group of clinicians.
Speaker 1: As we mentioned earlier, OBEs are using it in terms
Speaker 1: of assessing risk for pregnancy. On cologists are using it
Speaker 1: to assess risk overall as well as what treatment might
Speaker 1: be best for a patient. So we're starting to see
Speaker 1: a shift from um the expert setting of medical geneticis
Speaker 1: us into broader mainstream medicine. And so we educate providers
Speaker 1: about our services and we work with them to ensure
Speaker 1: that they have all the tools that they need to
Speaker 1: inform their patient as clearly as possible. You know, let
Speaker 1: me ask you something, do you think all babies should
Speaker 1: get genome sequencing? And and mind you, this is your business. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I understand where you're coming from, but but
Speaker 1: do you think it's a smart strategy. So I think
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of nuance involved in in the
Speaker 1: question because ultimately, what we want to be able to
Speaker 1: do is UM have information on hand to be able
Speaker 1: to provide a rapid diagnosis as soon as somebody is
Speaker 1: showing up with the symptom UM. And I can tell
Speaker 1: you if you look in the case of pediatric conditions
Speaker 1: UM right now, as it's utilized today, genetic testing can
Speaker 1: be used too late UM, meaning that there's damage being
Speaker 1: done to that child and they may not be eligible
Speaker 1: if they get a diagnosis too late for certain therapy.
Speaker 1: So one of the keys to using genetic testing is
Speaker 1: having it on hand to be able to use it
Speaker 1: as rapidly as possible to rule in or rule out
Speaker 1: what they're not There is UM an underlying genetic conditions,
Speaker 1: so I think it's important that we all have access
Speaker 1: to that information. UM. There have been some cases where
Speaker 1: there have been studies where they've done sequencing at birth
Speaker 1: and just provided the parents with an entire litany of
Speaker 1: information that the parent doesn't need in that moment at all.
Speaker 1: And that's not the way that we see this happening
Speaker 1: in the future. UM. What we see happening almost similar
Speaker 1: to to cord blood but being medically actionable here, UM
Speaker 1: is being able to sequence a baby at birth and
Speaker 1: just hold that information on behalf of the parents and
Speaker 1: the clinicians and individual and when there is information that
Speaker 1: they need, were able to come in and provide a
Speaker 1: definitive diagnosis or tell them there's not a genetic as
Speaker 1: who you here and then they can quickly move on. Hey,
Speaker 1: Catherine Moore on the business, Uh, you recently announced that, uh,
Speaker 1: Semaphore was buying you guys. Semaphore is an AI driven
Speaker 1: genomic and clinical data intelligence platform company. You are going
Speaker 1: to service co CEO after the acquisition is complete. Why
Speaker 1: does this make sense? What are the you know, for
Speaker 1: lack of better term synergies here, So semaphoreg gen d
Speaker 1: X are completely complementary. Um, each of us is doing
Speaker 1: something distinctly different. But UM, we have technologies that are
Speaker 1: going to accelerate the use of one another's technology. So
Speaker 1: in the case of Semaphore, they do carrier screening. UM,
Speaker 1: they have built a patient experience where they're able to
Speaker 1: connect with a mom to be And I'm sure that
Speaker 1: she has an understanding of what happens when she's doing
Speaker 1: her carrier springs UM. Once the child is born, that's
Speaker 1: where gene d x is technology comes to bear and
Speaker 1: we're able again in the event that there is some
Speaker 1: sort of symptom that the child is showing, to be
Speaker 1: able to then provide a diagnosis. So we're able to
Speaker 1: essentially pick up where Semaphore leads off from the pregnate,
Speaker 1: from the pregnant mom to be to now a mom
Speaker 1: who has a child who needs an answer for her
Speaker 1: her baby. UM. The other thing that we've done with
Speaker 1: our xome and our genome that is ultimately going to
Speaker 1: be the backbone for UM all of the testing that
Speaker 1: Semaphore does, so we're able to get a more comprehensive
Speaker 1: set of data that feeds their data engine called Centrellis
Speaker 1: that also takes a look at e m R data
Speaker 1: clinical note and is able to then ingest it and
Speaker 1: ensure that every patient that we're testing it's the most
Speaker 1: accurate information possible. Hey, Katherine, one last question. I kind
Speaker 1: of want to end with where we started UM. We
Speaker 1: talked about a Bloomberg Business Week story that talked about
Speaker 1: the company twenty three and me how they are working
Speaker 1: on drug developments in house. They're using the genetic material
Speaker 1: that they're capturing from all of us. And I think
Speaker 1: one in five Americans have done one of these, whether
Speaker 1: it's ancestry or twenty three and me kind of tests.
Speaker 1: Do you think this is a good idea? And just
Speaker 1: got about a minute or so about certainly, And I'm
Speaker 1: one of those people who have done twenty free me
Speaker 1: um and and and found twenty three and me kind
Speaker 1: of scratches the surface of the genome. What we do
Speaker 1: at gen X is deep genomic sequencing, and it's the
Speaker 1: totality and richness of the genetic information that we provide
Speaker 1: that in working with pharma companies is going to actually
Speaker 1: be the key to being able to more rapidly discover
Speaker 1: new treatments, more rapidly bring new treatments to market, and
Speaker 1: make sure that we really bring the promise of precision
Speaker 1: medicine to life. Well, it's certainly an interesting field. Katherine,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for carving out so much time for us.
Speaker 1: Katherine Stoutland, she is the CEO of gen d X,
Speaker 1: joining us on the phone from Maryland