Latest / StartUp Health NOW Podcast / Bridging Lifespan and Healthspan: Sen-Jam’s Innovations in Age-Related Disease Treatment

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Bridging Lifespan and Healthspan: Sen-Jam’s Innovations in Age-Related Disease Treatment · StartUp Health NOW Podcast

• 0:00
  [on-hold music] Welcome back to "Startup Health Now," the podcast where we celebrate the entrepreneurs and innovators who are transforming health.
• 0:14
  [upbeat music] Hi, my name is Unity Stoakes, co-founder of Startup Health.
• 0:17
  I'm really looking forward to today's conversation with two extraordinary health transformers, longtime health transformers in Startup Health, the dynamic duo behind Senjam, senjam.com, sen-jam.com, uh, Jim Iverson and Jackie Iverson, who are gonna share some exciting updates about the progress they're making with their Phase 2 trials that they're doing with Duke on anti-inflammatory innovation and bringing really exciting innovation to market that's gonna help us reduce inflammation, help with prevention, and, and really tap into the, the wave of innovation that intersects with GLP-1s and a lot of the other important things going on that are gonna help with healthy lifespan and, and help, uh, just improve our well-being through the long journey of life.
• 1:12
  So stick around. It's gonna be a great show. Wonderful.
• 1:17
  Well, I am here with two extraordinary health transformers, longtime health transformers from Startup Health, and we are gonna get all the exciting updates from Senjam and everything that you're doing.
• 1:31
  I think the last time I saw both of you- Mm-hmm... was during JPMorgan at the Exploratorium.
• 1:37
  I know you've seen a bunch of others on the Startup Health team, but it was so nice to get to see you at the Exploratorium and spend time in person together. How have you guys been? We've been great.
• 1:49
  You want to- Yeah, we've, uh...
• 1:51
  Um, we're excited about the progress that we've made in Senjam and, and, uh, and, you know, some of the recent, you know, large milestones that we've, we've hit, and looking forward to sharing them with you.
• 2:02
  Well, let's dig into that. Just kind of to frame the conversation and remind people, tell us about Senjam and your mission.
• 2:09
  Let's start there, just to kind of reacclimate everybody with the amazing work that you guys have been doing, and then let's dig into all the exciting updates. But what's your mission? Yeah.
• 2:22
  So our mission is to shape health science so that every life may flourish, and we do that by focusing on age-related diseases and longevity, primarily in the inflammation space.
• 2:36
  So with my background in supply chain prior to joining Senjam,
• 2:41
  you know, I've-- you know, doing diligence on Senjam, we looked at how, how inflammation's impacting all of us, and 60 to 70% of deaths are inflammatory related.
• 2:51
  At the end of life, there's such a inflammatory crisis which has kind of built up all through life.
• 2:57
  So, so, uh, you know, Jackie has come up with the great ideas on how we can address inflammation further upstream and earlier to either prolong or prevent those diseases from occurring, and we're really focused on this in this area called healthspan.
• 3:16
  And healthspan is the, is the, the gap between lifespan, how long we live, and when we can live without disability or, or disease. And, and right now in the United States, that gap is 12.4 years. Mm.
• 3:32
  And throughout the world, that gap has been constantly increasing. So from a preventative perspective, you know, that's the target we're going after.
• 3:40
  We're looking at what we can do to shrink that ga- not only shrink that gap so that people can live healthier and, and flourish more, but they can also live longer. Do you want to add anything? Yeah. No.
• 3:52
  Jackie, uh, it's so nice to see you, and you've been on our stage so many times and, and this is such an important topic, this gap between lifespan and healthspan.
• 4:04
  Share a little bit more about you, your background, and, and how you see this, see this opportunity. Well,
• 4:12
  that's a great question, and I can't wait to let everybody know that, you know, years ago, as a hospital pharmacist, I was tasked with what drugs do we buy into our hospital to treat our community.
• 4:27
  And my director said to me, "We got a real problem here. We've got... We're spending huge amounts of money on drugs, and we don't have good outcomes, and I want you to fix that."
• 4:40
  [laughs] And- Big, big problem, big challenge... [laughs] Right. And I kind of said, "Well, all right. You know, I'm a pharmacist. I can figure this out."
• 4:51
  And what I realized is that we spend so much of our pharmaceutical spend and our healthcare dollars, trillions of dollars, that go into this model that is all based on what people call sick care. Mm.
• 5:06
  It means that you f- you become sick and therefore you need a treatment.
• 5:11
  But unfortunately, after all that tissue damage and disease has taken root, we really don't have technologies to regenerate those cells unless we get into regenerative medicine, which other people are working on.
• 5:25
  But what my solution became is how do we prevent that damage from occurring in the first place to prevent all this chronic illness? And so that was really my mission, my goal.
• 5:40
  My vision for the future is let's change how we're taking care of people so that they can have the l- longest lives lived with the healthiest bodies possible.
• 5:54
  And so this is what I am introducing to the world as the solution of if we can decrease inflammation, because it's the inflammation that progresses chronic illness.
• 6:05
  If we can prevent that from progressing-Then we have a chance of changing our pro- our trajectory into the future. Mm. And just stepping into some of the economics of this,
• 6:19
  you know, healthcare in the United States is-- it's like a universal constant. It's like pi. It's twenty percent of GDP. And, so- It seems like it keeps going up and increasing too. Yeah.
• 6:29
  And it-- and that's about five trillion dollars of, of, uh, annual spend in, in, in health, in health spend.
• 6:37
  But ninety percent of that is on hospitals, doctors, and long-term care, and that's why the work that we're doing is so, so important, is, is in the five hundred billion part on the, the therapeutic side, pharmaceutical side, we are-- we're, we're looking at, at, at developing these preventatives so that people can live longer.
• 6:58
  'Cause as we're all aging, you know, there's gonna be s-such a greater need, as the baby boomers continue to age, for end-of-life care.
• 7:07
  And, and, you know, just re- just to be able to rely on, on, uh, you know, on paid care is gonna be tough. It's gonna have to-- you're gonna have to rely on, on families. Families taking care of families.
• 7:19
  And, and, uh- Mm... that's why we're-- we wanna address this now. And what we've found is this is just not, you know, people in their fifties and sixties that are thinking about it.
• 7:29
  You know, the younger generations are really, really focused on this as well. Let's, let's dig into your solution.
• 7:36
  And w- Let's, let's talk about the solution, this anti-- focusing on anti-inflammation to start, and, and then the update on where you are in the progress of bringing this solution to the world.
• 7:50
  I think it's-- You've made such extraordinary progress, and I'd love to, one, just dig in, double tap on in practical terms, what, what is this solution? How will people bring this into their lives, in what form? Mm.
• 8:05
  And then where are you in bringing this solution to the, to the world, and some of those updates. Great. Great. So our, our idea begins around pharmacologic science, right?
• 8:19
  So I wanted to make a medication that could be accessible to all, could be fast to market, and cost to zero.
• 8:29
  And the reason was is because I want everybody in the world to have access to being able to decrease their inflammation, so that everybody has access to having the longest health span possible.
• 8:41
  And so these are some really big goals that I had for making such a product.
• 8:48
  But what we did is we searched through the literature and we came up with a medication, and it turned into a platform, an entire platform of agents that can be used for multiple indications.
• 9:02
  And I know this sounds, like, very broad and, and kind of futuristic, but when we look at inflammation and how inflammation affects our bodies, this is a solution that nobody's come up with in the past.
• 9:19
  This is a solution where we can decrease inflammation by multiple pathways throughout your body, and we can do it with the safety of being able to take these products for long-term with the safety profile that nobody else has.
• 9:36
  So- So is this something you take as a pill every day? Early-- You mentioned prevention, so this is something- Yeah... that you actually start taking, at what age, to help prevent inflammation as you're aging?
• 9:49
  I'm curious about some of those details. Yes. So, so Unity, you know the first problem that we have with getting this medication to everybody around the world is we need to get through the FDA approval process.
• 10:01
  And so we are working with a system that needs to desperately be updated because they have realized too that this antiquated FDA pathway system does not allow for drugs like ours to easily be put on the market.
• 10:18
  And they realize that prevention and decreasing this model of sick care has to be addressed.
• 10:25
  But w-- And how we're going to weave our way through the FDA process is we're first gonna get our drugs approved for acute inflammation. Mm-hmm.
• 10:35
  And why this is important is because if people would take our drugs to decrease or prevent acute inflammation, and they r- can do it safely, then it's going to expand to being able to use it for chronic inflammation.
• 10:48
  And once we can do that, then we can get to the big thing that all longevity experts agree to, is that low-grade chronic inflammation drives the progression of disease and decreases our longevity and health span.
• 11:06
  So we have to go through a stepwise approach in order to get this drug available to everybody. Mm. But as we approach acute inflammation, we have had amazing results with our phase two clinical trials.
• 11:19
  And so- You, you mentioned a key thing there. So you're at phase two, so you're well on your journey here.
• 11:25
  I'd love to learn about it, 'cause you've made a lot of progress from when you-- from the inception of, of where you guys started to where you are today, and I'd, I'd love to,
• 11:34
  uh, the world to know about where you are on your journey and some of the progress and what you're most excited about. Yeah.
• 11:41
  So we're most excited about our recent phase two clinical trial with Duke University, where we gave our... One of the assets in our platform, we gave to a hundred patients, and fifty received placebo.
• 11:57
  And these patients had active COVID. Now, they had a very mild case of, of active COVID, so we did not see a huge inflammatory response. But the more important thing we did see is the side effect profile of our product.
• 12:13
  And the why that side effect profile is so important is because, as I said, in order to use our drug long term, you will need the best side effect profile ever s- in order to decrease inflammation long term.
• 12:27
  So the side effect profile was key. And-I had a hypothesis that not only would we see less side effects, but we would see it by a mechanism of action that would be totally new into the anti-inflammatory space.
• 12:42
  And so we hit our numbers, and so we have all these signals that this is exactly what's going on with this combination, and most importantly, we can apply what we learn to our one phase two clinical trial to the entire platform.
• 12:59
  And so we are creating an entire platform of the, of a new category of anti-inflammatories that will be the most potent anti-inflammatory, the most broadest spectrum, and can be used long-term.
• 13:14
  Why don't you talk a little about, you know, so what we all, Unity, after we got the data and we did a lot of sub-analysis work on, around the data, we were looking for, you know, what next? Like, where do we take this?
• 13:25
  And- Yeah, I'm curious about that. Yeah. And the advent of, you know, you know, AI has been such a phenomenal tool for us.
• 13:32
  We, it's, you know, we use it all the time, and we've got one of the top AI advi- top AI advisors in the world.
• 13:40
  And, and so looking, using AI and using our resources and using everything, you know, we landed on the greatest application for, for the, based on the results that we have, is to be used with GLP-1s and for MASH.
• 13:56
  So why don't you talk a little about how... And we just put out a press release on that this week.
• 14:01
  Because we're just learning, you know, now, you know, it's, it's hard to think that because, you know, Wegovy and, and Ozempic, you know, they're household names now, but they've really been only on the market for two or three years.
• 14:13
  Mm-hmm. And we're, and now we have, we're getting two and three years' worth of data, and we're learning that a lot of people, the side effects, you know, nausea, vomiting, and, and what's the third one?
• 14:26
  Nausea, nausea, nausea, vomiting, and doesn't matter. I'm talking about headaches and, and- Mm.
• 14:35
  One of your last times, Jackie, on stage, you were talking about how this can help people even in advance of a hangover or when they're, when they're drinking, so. Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:46
  All of this realm is what I'm looking to learn, learn about in terms of kind of what's next, the press release you mentioned, and then- Mm... also kind of why you're so excited about the early data that you're getting.
• 14:59
  Yeah. Yeah, so let me just finish with the GLP-1. So, you know, b-between, b- peoples go off of it because of the inability to, because of the side effects. Tolerate it.
• 15:08
  But what we're, we're finding out is long-term use of, of, of GLP-1s, that there's a, we're hitting a set point and people are starting to gain weight back.
• 15:17
  And then there's also this disproportion of, of, uh, muscle loss versus fat loss. And, and then, you know, what, what our drug can do to all of that could really help the GLP-1s out and lead into MASH. Do you wanna?
• 15:31
  Yeah, I'm gonna- Yeah. I'm just gonna connect a few dots, okay? Please. So, Unity, you asked about alcohol hangover, and we also earlier have spoken about how our drug could be used to decrease y- substance abuse.
• 15:46
  And all of these, what, what we're now understanding in the realm of science and, and medical care, is that the inflammation is generating and progressing all of these chronic illnesses, including substance abuse.
• 16:04
  And so if we can reduce inflammation, both neuroinflammation and systemic inflammation, we can prevent the progression of these diseases from taking hold, shaping, and growing over time, because inflammation is not like other disease states.
• 16:22
  What's curious and interesting and, and problematic about inflammation and why it's dogged us for so many years is because when inflammation begins, it's like a snowball going down a hill.
• 16:34
  It just continues to gather and gather and gather. And we now know that to be true because we can actually measure all these biomarkers of inflammation. It's just not how we feel. We can actually measure it.
• 16:48
  And so when we're looking at the alcohol hangover as an example of reducing acute inflammation, we first have to have a, a bit of an educational barrier.
• 17:00
  Number one, inflammation is extremely inflammatory, but people think it's dehydration, the reason why it causes a hangover. And we're gonna prove that that's not true. It's inflammation.
• 17:12
  And the way we're gonna do it is we're going to monitor all the inflammation biomarkers to show you not just how you feel, but by showing you the biomarkers, the science behind why this works.
• 17:24
  And so the alcohol hangover prevention, it is not just decreasing the inflammation from a single event, but every time you drink alcohol, you just keep increasing your inflammation in your body, and it's leading to GI disruption, and also it's leading to liver disease.
• 17:43
  And not only what is it doing in your brain.
• 17:46
  So we are preventative that a customer could take as a single dose, or we're trying to show that chronically you can even stop the progression of diseases like cardiometabolic diseases, like upper respiratory infections that lead in per- to perhaps long COVID, and that has a lot of inflammation and metabolic inflammation associated with it, all the way to your renal disease, your cancer, your autoimmune disease.
• 18:16
  So you see, like, a lot of the problems we have with inflammation is understanding it.
• 18:21
  And s- a lot of times, the beginning of inflammation occurs about seven years on average before you feel the first effects of it by noticing some tissue damage or disability.
• 18:34
  And that's when you go to the doctor, but it's kinda too late because all of these cells are injured and, and, and, and dying. So- So you're well on your journey here. What's next?
• 18:47
  And obviously-It takes funding to, to go through these cycles. You've had such amazing partners. You mentioned Duke that you're working to on your phase two, working with on your phase two. What are...
• 19:02
  Who are you looking to meet for these next phases of your journey and, and, and really where-- what are you most excited about what's coming, coming down the, down the pipe that the world needs to know about? Yes.
• 19:15
  No- Yeah. So let me, let me just set this up and then because I really, I think it's really important. So we are for the alcohol hangover therapeutic, we are in a phase two clinical trial with that right now.
• 19:25
  So that's underway, and we ex- will start dosing patients at the end of this month, have some early data readout by the end of this year.
• 19:34
  Then the other important element of work that we've been doing is around opioid use disorder and the National Institute. We're, we're being co-sponsored by the, or sponsored by the National Institute of Drug Abuse.
• 19:45
  They're doing animal studies for us now, looking at our drug for methamphetamine use disorder, and then bringing it back to what is we're super, super excited about because of the most recent discoveries is around the GLP, our drug that we just finished with Duke for the GLP-1s and MASH, and let's talk about some of the next steps with that and who we might be able to-- who'd be great if we met.
• 20:07
  Yes, sure.
• 20:09
  So w-well, the, the partnership with the National Institute of Drug Abuse is just a paramount because what this signals to us and everyone is what we've been saying, that if you decrease neuroinflammation, you can make a contribution, a, a clinical benefit to substance use disorder.
• 20:30
  And that's just... Yes. So what I was saying is that- The National Institute of Drug Abuse. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Start there. Yeah. Our--
• 20:40
  us being co-sponsored by the National Institute of Drug Abuse is one of the biggest feathers in our caps because substance abuse is not only opioids, methamphetamine, it's a whole slew of items.
• 20:55
  It's alcohol, it's tobacco, it's food, it's gambling, it's, it's, it's shopping [chuckles]. It's... There's so many things that go on in our brain with behavior that causes us to get into a, an abuse issue.
• 21:11
  And so when the National Institute of Drug Abuse began to understand, like we had been working on for so long, that it's inflammation that drives that, that by creating something that...
• 21:25
  a medication that can decrease that inflammation is paramount to the entire platform.
• 21:32
  And how we wish to use that as it relates to cardiometabolics is that if we can decrease neuroinflammation, we can decrease the activation of the brain that causes you to have hunger and not feel full, and also to keep defending your set weight
• 21:53
  is work.
• 21:55
  So in other words, a person who is constantly dieting, but they find it hard in the maintenance cycle to keep that weight off, that's because the set weight point keeps pushing you upward to what your body thinks you should be, and this is all driven by inflammation.
• 22:16
  If you decrease the inflammation, then your body's going to start working towards you being that twenty percent less in weight. And so that's how the GLPs were working, and it's really important.
• 22:28
  They were approved for chronic therapy. But mostly, the way it's used is that you take the drug, you decrease the weight, and now you want to stop taking them because of their tolerability issues.
• 22:40
  But that's when the set point starts rising back again, and you regain that weight. And so the way our drug works is that it keeps that set weight point low.
• 22:51
  You can take it, you can take off your GLP-1, and you can continue to take our drug to decrease that set weight point, while you're also preferably metabolizing fat instead of muscle.
• 23:05
  And so- Is this why you decided to go more of a platform route to, to be able to integrate with all these other elements that you're talking about? There's the GO- GLP-1 revolution.
• 23:15
  There's some of the other innovations going on. Is that kind of why you created this platform approach? Exactly.
• 23:23
  When we found sp- most, most of the, the biggest clinical, uh, part to support this platform was this phase two clinical
• 23:34
  obtained during the Duke trial, is because we now can see that our new chemical, when we combine two drugs together that are always known to be safe, we took them together, and we realized that we had this very broad spectrum inflam- anti-inflammatory pathway, including the one that is going to give you the clinical benefits I just spoke about in the, uh, in the obesity and the metabolic associated liver disease space.
• 24:01
  And so that's just one application of how we can take two drugs together and use it for that issue.
• 24:09
  But our entire platform has multiple different assets of different combinations of the same categories of drugs, which will have the same mechanism of action.
• 24:19
  But we can use them for different things, like decreasing alcohol's effect on your body, or decreasing, uh, substance use disorder, or decreasing the progression of low-grade chronic inflammation as it relates to longevity.
• 24:37
  And so that's why it's a platform, because we can take the basic mechanism of action and this wonderful broad spectrum anti-inflammatory component, and we can start using it just for all these different items that people are, are, uh-Complain about or, or want a solution for, but there's nothing on the market that can do what ours does.
• 25:01
  Well, we n- we need to get this to market. Um- We do [laughs]. Where, where can people learn more about you? Where can people get in touch with you? Where...
• 25:13
  You know, there's a, a vast audience here of, of people, of organizations, of funders who I think will want to get in touch with you to learn more about how to get involved.
• 25:24
  Where, where, where would you like people to reach you? Yeah, so we could, you know, our website at, at, um, sen-jam.com, S-E-N hyphen J-A-M dot com.
• 25:34
  And, uh, you know, you talked earlier, we are-- we just initiated another crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder. We, we continue to step into the venture community and spend a lot of...
• 25:49
  There are companies like ours, and to a large degree, the capital's not flowing into the market. You know, we hear all these excuses and, and we don't get caught up in the excuses.
• 25:58
  You know, w-we've got a mission to drive our five lead assets that are in or at phase two.
• 26:04
  Our goal over the next two years is, is to get all five of those through phase two clinical trials and advance our IP around, around the, the, the five assets as well.
• 26:14
  We have over sixty patents and patents pending currently, and we've just retained Destum Partners to seek licens- to streak s-strategic partners for our two lead assets, which are for, uh, the impacting the inflammation associated with alcohol, which is SJP-zero zero one, and then also our, our new metabolic SJP-zero zero two C trial that we just finished.
• 26:39
  Yeah. So D-Destum Partners is seeking strategic partners. That could be their co-development partner, a in-licensing partner or acquisition of the asset. And- Yeah...
• 26:49
  uh, we've over-- we have started engaging in people who are interested in the assets.
• 26:53
  An-another way to learn about Sen-Jam and might pique people's interest is if you're in the longevity world and you, you are thinking, you know, that's where the investment space should be, that we were just written up in an Oppenheimer, um, analyst report on longevity, and it spoke about how this longevity market is going to be, like, three times bigger than the obesity market.
• 27:21
  So if you're into, like, that type of innovation and- And it's growing so rapidly now. You mentioned lifespan and longevity.
• 27:29
  It's, it's just such-- It's finally, thankfully becoming a true category of, of growth and opportunity, so I'm glad you, you mentioned that.
• 27:38
  Well, I'm gonna- Make sure to put all these links in the show notes to, to that Oppenheimer report, sen dash jam, S-E-N dash J-A-M dot com, and then also your Wefunder.
• 27:51
  I know you've been very successful on Wefunder, and we'd, we'd love to make sure all of those five assets get, get funded through, through the journey. Any last wis-words of wisdom to share with, with the world?
• 28:04
  I'd like to have regular check-ins with you all because you just seem to be every time we talk from the last time there's been a, a quantum leap forward.
• 28:17
  And Jim, you mentioned how AI is, is really powering a lot of speeding up the innovation cycles for you.
• 28:25
  [lip smack] I'd like to have these regular check-ins so we can keep tabs on the progress and, and I know it's such a journey to bring these extraordinary transformative [lip smack] assets to market.
• 28:38
  And Jackie, you mentioned the hurdles of going through FDA. This is not an easy thing. This is, this is definitely a long-term
• 28:48
  venture, and you guys are really navigating it in, in really extraordinary through, through over the past years. So excited to see where this goes. Yes. Great. Yes.
• 29:00
  Yeah, the one last thing is the-- we're, you know, we're-- we, we just made the discovery around where our therapeutic can be used in the GLP one and, and MASH space, and we are starting outreach to the companies that could truly benefit from that, and we're trying to, you know, make as many contacts, being Nova Nordisk, Eli Lilly- Amgen...
• 29:23
  Amgen, Fi-Pfizer, and BI. So we're, you know, we just started today. Just to name a few.
• 29:29
  We j- yeah, we just started today of putting out our outreach because we can really help them extend the, the life and duration, given the patents that we have that go through the twenty-forties,
• 29:41
  and combining with, with the work that we're doing, it-- we could really be a benefit to them and also support our mission to being a benefit to humanity.
• 29:48
  Well, thank you both for the extraordinary vision and, and work that you're doing. I always love catching up with you and look forward to seeing you in person again soon.
• 29:59
  And I wanna come visit you 'cause I love the background there. It looks like a beautiful forest there behind you. I wanna come, come visit wherever you are today. So [lip smack]
• 30:09
  thank you for sharing the updates and, and looking forward to seeing you soon here. Okay. Great.
• 30:16
  It's always so nice to speak with health transformers who really have big visions and are persevering through the extraordinary journey it takes to
• 30:25
  bring innovation to market, especially when you've got to go through and navigate the FDA as part of your process like Sen-Jam is doing.
• 30:35
  You can connect with Jim Iverson and Jackie Iverson at sen dash jam dot com and also check out their fundraising effort on Wefunder, wefunder.com, and really learn about the amazing work they're doing in the anti-inflammatory market here and bringing new innovation to market in this category.
• 30:58
  So thanks for being here, and please look into the amazing work that Sen-Jam is doing. [upbeat music] And finally, an invitation to all of the extraordinary health transformers.
• 31:13
  Whether you are a startup, someone building the future of health, or whether you are an investor, funder, or buyer of the solutions out there in the marketplace, this is an invitation to you to join the Startup Health member community.
• 31:28
  Learn more at startuphealth.com. Look forward to hopefully seeing you soon. [upbeat music]