Embleema, an AgeTech Collaborative™ startup participant, offers a standardized technology platform that accelerates personalized medicine by working with patients, doctors, researchers and labs to form clinical data networks and to make data collection simpler, more accurate and more useful — which both fuels cutting-edge research and helps provide better health outcomes for individual patients.
We spoke with Embleema’s co-founder and CEO, Robert Chu, who shared the company’s vision, how it streamlines the collection of clinical data, and how the platform offers some surprising benefits for people who are 50-plus.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Please tell us about Embleema.
We provide software-as-a-service that accelerates research and simplifies the administration of research in the healthcare space, especially with regard to diseases for which there are no good treatments and that have underserved populations — people who don’t have access to treatments or clinical trials. We accelerate the research and access by connecting those people and collecting data.
From a business standpoint, we’re a B2B company working with research and life science institutions and even government agencies. In terms of actual users, we also work with patients because we really want to help them, and we also work with doctors, because they’re the ones actually providing care to patients, and they do research as well.
Let’s say I’m a researcher looking into a particular disease. How would I use your software?
As a researcher, you need data to respond to your research questions. For example, let’s say you’re researching autoimmune disease and you have two patients who have similar profiles. Why does one patient develop the disease, but not the other? Why does a drug work for one patient, but not the other?
To conduct your research, you need to decide what kind of data sets you need from which patients — such as what medications they’re taking, what other diseases or conditions they have, and possibly even genomic data.
That’s where our software comes in. The doctor meets with those patients, collects data, and then inputs it into our software. The patient also responds to surveys through our patient app, which is also a data source. In addition, we connect to labs to collect data such as genomic sequencing or blood test results. So that’s the first step: data collection from doctors, hospitals, patients and labs.
What’s the second step?
The second step is standardizing the data, because no data is alike. For example, sometimes you have different units of measurement for lab results, sometimes medical records are handwritten, and so there’s a great deal of “cleaning up” that needs to be done. We do that and provide a standardized data set for researchers so they can start using it to answer their research questions.
That’s great for the research side of things. Does your software provide more immediate benefits for doctors and patients?
We definitely want our system to provide benefits to doctors and patients directly, separate from any kind of research setting. Let’s say someone who has epilepsy goes to see their doctor. The first thing the doctor will want is some data, such as whether the patient had a change in their pattern of seizures or if they’ve made any changes to their medication in the past several months. But often, the patient won’t remember that information very well, so the first half of the appointment is spent with the doctor just trying to get this data.
But using the Embleema app in the months between doctor visits, the patient can record all that information in real time. Then, we present that data in a report or a dashboard for the doctor, so they can quickly start making decisions about care that’s right for the patient, instead of spending so much time trying to collect and make sense of data verbally reported by the patient.
How do patients use the app?
It’s very easy to use. If a person with epilepsy, for example, had a seizure, they simply open the app and report that they had a seizure, and they can report that they’re taking their medications as prescribed.
A patient can also upload all their medical records. The app can connect to virtually any kind of care center they’ve been to in their lifetime, and — as part of the standardization process that we do — we can reconstruct their entire medical history, including medications, diseases, procedures and lab results. This is all very valuable for their doctor.
We can also serve patients by connecting them to new research projects. For example, if their medications or treatments aren’t working, we might be able to match them to a new clinical trial or a new drug that could improve their care.
What was your inspiration for starting Embleema?
I used to work for a large company that conducted a lot of research and clinical trials. One thing that always disturbed me was that while we worked very closely with doctors and researchers, we never interacted with the patient — literally, the patient was just a data point.
That might work okay if you’re developing very generic drugs. But more and more, we’re entering the area of precision medicine, where a drug might work only if you have a particular mutation or rare disease. And if you don’t have an actual relationship with the patient, you’re not collecting the right data, and the right patients you do need are being underserved.
So my co-founder and I started Embleema to build these relationships with patients. We treat patients as partners the same way that we treat doctors and researchers as partners. We’re always asking ourselves, “What can we do with our app that will benefit patients?”
Does your solution offer any benefits that are particular to those who are 50-plus?
We really doubled down on serving older adults because that segment of the population tends to feel alone and unheard — particularly if they have a severe disorder. But by having the ability to share their data, they feel like they have a meaningful voice and are making an important contribution to the research into their disease. Our patients tell us that it gives them a sense of usefulness, and even pride. They want to share their story and their data because they know it could ultimately help their children or grandchildren.
What’s striking is that older adults are just as engaged as younger people — and sometimes even more engaged than younger people — in terms of compliance with care and study protocols, even when technology is involved. In fact, they’re very vocal and give us a lot of advice! It’s a great population to work with because of their selflessness and eagerness to share and participate.
What’s up next for Embleema?
So far, we’ve been focused on improving the health of people through medical research. But recently, we’ve contracted with the Department of Defense to help keep people safe. We will be using our bioinformatics technology on naval bases: By sampling wastewater from a base, we can detect infections, mutations or certain markers that could indicate a bioattack.
Detecting such an attack early will allow countermeasures such as antiviral drugs and quarantine protocols to be put into place quickly to prevent it from spreading. We want to have a healthy population, and we also want to have a safe population. So that’s next for us in terms of deploying commercially.
Learn more about Embleema at their website.
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