  Emma Durand, a Rhode Island native, was ready to move her business out of the state last year until the prospect of relocating Isis Biopolymer, her medical service company based in Warwick, to Providence’s burgeoning Knowledge District arrived at her doorstep.
Durand saw the unique opportunity to partner with institutions like the Brown Medical School (which just moved in across the street from Isis) and Lifespan for some potentially innovative collaboration in the biosciences. Shortly after Thanksgiving last year, Isis opened its doors at 233 Richmond Street in Providence, and is now expanding it to a full-fledged manufacturing facility for their products.
Led by veteran scientists, Durand’s company is the architect and manufacturer of an intelligent medical apparatus called the IsisIQ™. The product is a transdermal patch that delivers medicine through the skin using a small electric charge. That technique, called iontophoresis, is not new to the medical field, but what makes the IsisIQ™ such an innovative model is that it uses microprocessors (or computer chips) and thin film batteries that are supported by a proprietary software which physicians and pharmacists can then use to program patients’ multiple drug dosages via WiFi. Durand, in fact, demonstrated how a doctor would monitor and send a signal to the patch increasing, or decreasing, a patient’s prescription drug right on her iPhone.
City News stopped by Isis headquarters this week to chat with Durand about the workings of the IsisIQ™ and her new home in the Creative Capital.
Can the IsisIQ™ patch administer any kind of drug? Give some examples.
This patch will be able to administer many, many drugs – not all drugs, but about 90% of the drugs that will be highly prescribed in the U.S. We have a very large R&D staff and a very active collaboration with Brown University and diabetes is one of our major topics. Insulin delivery is a major program here, and drugs like G0P1 that actually enhance the body’s ability to make insulin. We’re also tackling smoking cessation drugs and analgesics that many, many post-orthopedic surgeries require. 
The drug will be in the patch and is delivered only in the microprocessors. One other feature of this patch is the membrane that separates the drug from the skin, which is very important because let’s say you have an analgesic, or a narcotic in the patch, if it’s in contact with the skin, the drug would be able to seep into the bloodstream very slowly. Should your body temperature go up, or you have a fever, or do something dumb like jump in a hot tub or exercise, you can essentially overdose yourself. Another important feature is the fact that the electrodes are set up in a Z-axis which prevents the skin from becoming a part of the circuit. Let’s face it – a lot of people don’t enjoy getting shocked by an electrical current – so we’ve made it as pleasant as possible of an experience for the patient.
Who are the types of patients that would benefit from this kind of product?
It’s really about the types of therapies that would benefit. Many therapies are very efficacious but the problem is they have side effects or they have a short half-life so they require multiple dosing during the day. Side effects and multiple dosing affect many in the geriatric and pediatric community and unfortunately many of us in between just forget to take medication or we don’t like the side effects so we don’t take it. Compliance is a big guiding force behind the Isis product and really in the practice of medicine today. Also a factor is that some medications benefit from the ability of the patch to precisely dose during the day so that essentially, when you have medication that affects diet or sleep, you can dose it over a 24-hour period.
Explain how your patch can be administered via WiFi.
WiFi is becoming ubiquitous in the United States. Our product has in fact been designed and optimized for WiFi. (Durand demonstrates how the IsisIQ, through a proprietary software program, works via WiFi on her iPhone.) What we have is an X-and-Y axis graph. On the X-axis you’ll see a 24-hour time period and the Y-axis is the volume of the drug that’s been delivered. In this particular case I’m showing you, this patient is managing three different drugs over a 48-hour period. So if this patch were active, your doctor or pharmacist can actually program this to administer the precise dosage to the patient via WiFi, sending an electronic charge to the patch at the right time of day.
Let’s say a patient is having a little bit of a problem with their medication, you can interrogate the patch and change the dosing. A better example is if you just had orthopedic surgery and you’re at home experiencing an incredible amount of pain that neither you nor your doctor had anticipated. The doctor can literally dial up the patch and change the dosing. Ultimately, this will be a very important feature of the patch. Right now we use it for pre-programming patches that we have in production currently.
The patch is already out in the market. We have a cosmeceutical product that you can actually buy at CVS, Walgreens and Walmart now. The RX products utilizing the Isis technology will be available in 2011. We are in full production. We are viable company. This is not a science project.
How long has this kind of technology been around?
From the laws of physics, iontophoresis has been around for a very long time. However, converting this technique over biopolymeric film and the utilization of microprocessors and high-capacity mini-batteries is really quite new. We have known patent application and patent trademarks on this.
Why did you decide to develop the IsisIQ™?
I thought about the product in 1992 but the problem back then was that the microprocessors and batteries that were required to make it were just very expensive. So I watched the prices of microprocessors and batteries go down over the years until 2005. At that point, I left the company I was working with and started Isis. We started off at 55 Pine Street then moved to 555 Jefferson Boulevard in Warwick. We were planning on leaving the state until Mayor Cicilline stopped in and really put the bug in our ear about moving into the Jewelry District.
Are you from Providence?
I am originally from Rhode Island, left to go to school in Boston, took a job at a company in Woburn who bought my company which I started when I was in school, and was in-and-out of Rhode Island for many years. Now I’m back in Providence.
What do you think are the benefits of bringing your industry here to Providence and what do you hope to bring to the Knowledge District?
Frankly it was the Knowledge District that brought us here. We have a very effective collaboration with Brown and Lifespan. Those relationships are extremely important to the company. As a matter of fact, we have a very close relationship with Lifespan. We conduct animal and human testing with them. We’re sharing laboratory space with Brown. In addition our location here is directly across the street from the new Brown Medical School. It really was a combination of looking at the business environment, which frankly is not ideal, but the relationships we’ve forged with these two institutions far outweigh the negatives especially with respect to bringing in the business environment. I do think those business problems are more with the State than with the City.
So how’s business going so far?
We moved in right around last Thanksgiving. It’s very hectic. We are essentially building a full-fledged manufacturing establishment in less than six months. We’re having equipment constructed in Germany that will be used right here in these facilities. They should be in by July and will double our capacity. We plan on hiring another 30 people between now and August. So we’re as busy as a beehive.
Shawna Gvazdauskas (Chief Commercial Officer): I just wanted to add that there are three critical factors for success in our business. One of them is compliance and that we are able to deliver drugs in a better way for our patients. Cost is important and so is good healthcare outcomes, ensuring that patients are getting better medical care at a more cost-effective rate. It’s not just enough to have a great product; somebody has to pay for it. We have a very, very competitive and impressive model for managed care and also for pharmaceutical companies.
Currently we can deliver up to three drugs in a patch. Emma mentioned insulin and G0P1 glucocymyte. Multiple drugs can be delivered in one patch, making it easier and more cost-effective for a patient that has to take numerous medications. Not only can the physician or the pharmacist control the program, the patient themselves can administer and control analgesia. You don’t have to be hooked up to an IV now because the patch can control the dosages of that for you – all under the parameters of the prescription.
The product is sold under the label of University Medical Pharmaceutical but we develop and manufacture the IsisIQ technology. We now develop anywhere from 12-15,000 patches a day.
In terms of that future workforce, what should young aspiring scientists prepare for in order to work in a field like yours?
Study hard! The fact of the matter is most kids in school are very cognizant of the fact that jobs are scarce. The biosciences are clearly one of the growth areas – clearly in Providence’s Knowledge District, and clearly in the United States. So many of our jobs over the last fifteen years have moved to China that a young person in college who might major in engineering might have to look elsewhere and might be asking themselves, “Where am I going to engineer?” However, in the biosciences there are many opportunities. Nurturing the biosciences is really good business for the state and really good business for the City of Providence because this city is the hub of education and health care. That is what’s going to attract young kids coming out of school and so we have to nurture that and build the business to go along with the introduction of these young people into this economy.
What is the future of iontophoretic medicine and where do you see yourself playing a role in that?
I think the future is very robust. There are many medications that can benefit from this technology because we are going to eliminate troublesome side effects, improve compliance, create a lower cost delivery platform for the patient and the doctor, and in effect many of the physicians who have seen this product have said, “We’re going to be bringing the doctor back into medicine.” Quite frankly, that idea is very attractive to many of the physicians here in Providence.
For more about Isis Biopolymer, go to http://www.isisbiopolymer.com |