The Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years-One on One with Thomas Okarma of Geron
Monday, February 16, 2009SUSIE GHARIB: Number five on our list is DNA testing and sequencing of the human genome. It's a field that's leading to amazing medical advances. One company using those technologies to find new treatments for heart disease and spinal cord injuries is Geron. I recently sat down with Geron's CEO Thomas Okarma and began by asking him what's the next big breakthrough in medicine?
THOMAS OKARMA, CEO, GERON: We're learning how different individual patients have different manifestations of the same disease. And that we think will lead to better and more individualized treatments.
GHARIB: Tom, your company, Geron, just got the go ahead from the government to use embryonic stem cells in the first human clinical trial, which is a milestone in itself. What are the implications of that for medicine and for patients?
OKARMA: Well, to give a specific example with heart failure or heart attacks, we've learned how to make heart muscle cells from embryonic stem cells. And instead of in the future having a heart attack and going home with a damaged heart, in the future you'll go to the hospital and you'll have that damage specifically repaired by injecting new heart muscle cells. So that you go home not only with a regenerated heart muscle fixed from the damage, but it will contain new healthy cells that can also respond to today's heart drugs.
GHARIB: So how close are you to delivering on these innovations?
OKARMA: Well, we are here for spinal cord injury. This trial will start in a few months. It will be another year or two before we're ready, but the second cell type, which will probably be heart muscle cells for heart attack. Another year before we're ready to do the Type I diabetes cell type.
GHARIB: Besides what's going on in your company at Geron, what else is new in medical technology that's bubbling up?
OKARMA: Well, there are new pills. There are new drugs that are much more powerful and more specific for the disease in an individual. So we're beginning to understand how a cancer, the same cancer in you might be treated differently if I have the same tumor as you do. And that individual variation is what's going to be very important as we march forward to get over treating symptoms and focus more on eradicating the fundamentals of the disease.
GHARIB: Everyone is talking about the health care crisis and about health care reforms. Can medical innovations reform the system in terms of lowering health care costs and also promoting wellness.
OKARMA: Innovation has the potential to advance the cause of health. But unfortunately much of the recent innovation comes at a very high cost in relationship to the value added. The $100,000 cost of treatment that adds two or three weeks to the life span of a cancer patient. So we are selective in how we view innovation, not simply another step with another pill, but a phase change, a new value paradigm that completely changes outcome at a minimal increase in cost.
GHARIB: Tom, if you fast forward to the future, is it possible that there will be cures for most diseases or is that just a science fiction dream?
OKARMA: I think it's absolutely possible. The more we understand about the fundamental biology of disease, the more likely we are able to engineer a specific and permanent cure for that disease. So like any other technological advance, the more we understand about the problem, the more likely we are to find a solution that works.
GHARIB: Tom, thank you so much, great seeing you.
OKARMA: Thank you for having me.
