Mariann Byerwalter joins Scipher Medicine’s Board of Advisors

6 min readDec 1, 2020

WALTHAM, Mass., Dec. 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Scipher Medicine, a precision immunology company matching patients with the most effective therapy, has appointed Mariann Byerwalter to its Board of Advisors. Byerwalter brings valuable insights into complex healthcare systems as the company launches its portfolio of molecular signature tests in the autoimmune market.

“Mariann’s broad healthcare expertise will add a valuable perspective to Scipher’s precision diagnostics, starting with PrismRA,” said Alif Saleh, Chief Executive Officer of Scipher Medicine. “It is an honor to have Mariann join Scipher as we bring precision medicine solutions to autoimmune disease.”

As the newest member of Scipher’s Board of Advisors, Byerwalter’s experience will provide Scipher with a unique viewpoint on how new precision medicine products and services fit into the larger healthcare ecosystem in order to drive patient access and adoption.

“I look forward to working with Scipher as they bring this new technology to underserved areas of healthcare,” said Mariann Byerwalter. “Precision solutions promise to improve both patient outcomes and health system efficiency.”

Byerwalter is Chairman Emeritus of the SRI International. She serves on the Stanford Health Care Board of Directors, where she was Chairman of the Board of Directors from 2006 through 2013, and served as the Interim President and CEO of Stanford Health Care in 2016. Byerwalter also sits on the Board of Directors of Pacific Life, Franklin Resources, and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. She holds a B.A. degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Byerwalter joins Dr. Regina Benjamin, 18th Surgeon General of the United States, on Scipher’s Board of Advisors.

About PrismRA®
PrismRA, a molecular signature test, is a revolutionary advancement bringing precision medicine to the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, which affects 20 million patients globally. From a routine blood draw, the PrismRA test analyzes an individual’s molecular signature, helping identify who is unlikely to adequately respond to TNFi therapy, the world’s largest selling drug class, so non-responders can be prescribed alternative effective therapy. Providers now have objective data to guide therapeutic decision-making and give patients the best chance of achieving treatment targets and improving clinical outcomes. For more information, please visit www.PrismRA.com.

About Scipher Medicine
Scipher Medicine holds the fundamental belief that patients deserve simple answers to treatment options based on scientifically backed data. Leveraging our proprietary Network Medicine platform and artificial intelligence, we commercialize blood tests revealing a persons’ unique molecular disease signature and match such signature to the most effective therapy, ensuring optimal treatment from day one. The unprecedented amount of patient molecular data generated from our tests further drives the discovery and development of novel and more effective therapeutics. We partner with payers, providers, and pharma along the health care value chain to bring precision medicine to autoimmune diseases. Visit www.sciphermedicine.com and follow Scipher on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Del Mar physician Steve Bierman recently released his first book, “Healing: Beyond Pills and Potions,” detailing some of the ways he harnesses the power of the human mind to complement traditional medicine.

Bierman, who earned his undergraduate degree at UC San Diego and his doctorate at Northwestern University’s school of medicine, said the book “is about the impact of ideas on health and healing.”

“It also looks at the kind of ideas patients hold that often contribute to illness, or contrastingly, that can actually contribute to their wellness and overcoming whatever illness they’re fighting,” he added.

Throughout his career, Bierman has incorporated hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming, commonly referred to as NLP, to help patients as they prepare for surgery or other types of treatment.

Some research has shown hypnosis can supplement traditional medical treatments, but it hasn’t been widely embraced in mainstream medicine.

“It’s challenging to get physicians to understand that their words have an impact and that they have a choice,” said Bierman, whose career includes 20 years as an emergency physician at Scripps in Encinitas. “They can either issue a curse by not being careful or they can assist in a cure by finding the right words and gestures.”

Some studies have labeled NLP a pseudoscience, but there has also been anecdotal evidence of its efficacy in certain applications. Bierman said the results an NLP practitioner can expect to get are “operator dependent.”

“It’s fair to say the burden of scientific proof still rests on the people who are using these techniques,” Bierman said. “It would go a long way to have well designed studies proving out the points that they maintain.”

He added that based on the results he’s been able to get using hypnosis for helping patients improve their heart rhythms, open their airwaves or help them through other types of procedures, “it’s very hard to have doubt whether it worked or not.”

Bierman said the back of the book offers protocols for studies that should be done.

Bierman also said his interest in implementing hypnosis into his medical practice stems in part from the early works of self-help guru Tony Robbins in the 1980s.

“I began to piece together what was not at all understood by anyone, which was the common element to all these happenings I was witnessing,” he said. “The common element is that mind matters, ideas matter.”

Bierman said the feedback has been good so far.

“Most of it is very positive, better than I expected,” he said.

For more information about the book, visit healingbeyondpills.com.

European regulator to decide Dec. 29 on 1st virus vaccine

BERLIN (AP) — The European Medicines Agency will convene a meeting on Dec. 29 to decide if there is enough data about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech for it to be approved, the regulator said Tuesday.

The agency also said Tuesday it could decide as early as Jan. 12 whether to approve a rival COVID-19 vaccine developed by Moderna Inc.

The German pharmaceutical company BioNTech and its U.S. partner Pfizer said earlier Tuesday that they had asked the regulator for speeded-up, conditional approval of their coronavirus vaccine, concluding the rolling review process they initiated with the agency on Oct. 6.

The move comes a day after rival Moderna said it was asking U.S. and European regulators to allow the use of its COVID-19 vaccine.

BioNTech said if the vaccine, currently named BNT162b2, is approved, its use in Europe could begin before the end of 2020.T he companies said last month that clinical trials with 44,000 participants showed the vaccine is 95% effective. The efficacy rate in particularly vulnerable older age groups was more than 94%, they said.

In a statement, the EU medicines regulator said it had already begun a “rolling review” of the Moderna vaccine based on laboratory data previously submitted by the company and would now assess data on how well that vaccine triggers an immune response and whether it is safe enough for broad use across Europe.

The agency said that “if the data are robust enough to conclude on quality, safety and effectiveness,” then it could approve the Moderna vaccine at a meeting scheduled for Jan. 12.

BioNTech and Pfizer have already submitted a request for emergency approval with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.K. regulator MHRA, as well as rolling submissions in other countries including in Australia, Canada and Japan.

“We have known since the beginning of this journey that patients are waiting, and we stand ready to ship COVID-19 vaccine doses as soon as potential authorizations will allow us,” Pfizer’s chief executive Albert Bourla said in a statement.

BioNTech said it stands ready to ship stockpiles of vaccines where they are needed when the Amsterdam-based agency or the FDA approve the vaccine.

“Depending on how the authorities decide we can start delivering within a few hours,” said BioNTech’s chief operating officer, Sierk Poetting.

The European Union’s top official said around 2 billion doses of potential COVID-19 vaccines have been secured for the bloc’s 27 nations, with the first deliveries likely to start before the end of the year.

Mariann Byerwalter joins Scipher Medicine’s Board of Advisors

European regulator to decide Dec. 29 on 1st virus vaccine

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