MM+M’s top 5 conversations of 2023

Hey, it’s Marc. Welcome to this. Best of episode of the show. We’re used to speaking with highly accomplished biopharma Executives and the guests late this year continued that long tradition.

You’ll hear a highlights of the conversations by colleague Jack O’Brien had with marketing execs from Madrona Pharmaceuticals Iraqis Therapeutics and dentsu health they cover topics as diverse as leading beyond covid the struggle for lgbtqia+ progress and the backstory behind an award-winning Parkinson’s app, of course a number of actors and athletes have become well regarded in healthcare circles as well and I sat down with a couple of them this year the inclusion of Patrick Dempsey and Bernie Williams and our guest list reflects, the increasing importance of celebrity endorsers and influencers to the healthcare marketing ecosystem. There are top five of 2023 and our producer Bill Fitzpatrick and I are going to recap these conversations with clips from each unless she’s here with the health policy update her final of the year

mark this week. I’ll be recapping the biggest.

Health policy moves of 2023

I’d also like to get a well-deserved shout out to our friend at Sonic branding from scizium Zone Who besides composing the theme music to the podcast have written some lovely variations on their theme expressly for this holiday edition. If you should happen to need Sonic branding for a brand or project you’re working on be sure to give them a call.

Without further Ado. Let’s begin. We hope you enjoy it. Number five modernist Kate Cronin Chief brand officer. Spoke about how she’s working to equate the Cambridge company best known for its mRNA bass vaccine with disease areas Beyond covid this interview Aaron on August 4th. Cronin is no stranger to issues management having spent the better part of her career serving farmer clients as an agency executive for joining modern in 2021. She’s now focusing her firm on a longer term goal capitalizing on modernist built in brand recognition, but also communicating to convince the public and investors. The modern isn’t nearly in her words a covid company. She also spoke about how she’s driving to make that narrative relatable to

people through a mix of education and entertainment you talked about the segmentation of the critics that moderna’s face whether it’s on the pricing side or on the anti-vac side recently. There was a very prominent one with Aaron Rodgers attending the US Open Crossing out your logo saying no facts joke events and reference to yokevitches refusal to get the code vaccine. What was your response to that or what was the company is response because I can imagine you hear

From plenty of people, but when it’s somebody as you know prominent is one of the most popular players in the NFL it takes on a different way to imagine.

Yeah.

I mean look.

There we all know that you know, Novak was is did not want to take a vaccine and that was very prominent last year at the US Open and we sponsored the US Open and this year, you know the Tweet or and social media from from Aaron Rodgers. I think it’s it’s his prerogative to to say and do what he wants to say. We don’t respond to that sort of thing. That’s you know, it’s up to him. If he wants to do creative, you know messaging around his point of view. I

appreciate their response to that kind of pivoting off of the covid questions here obviously modern is trying to Rebrand itself or I shouldn’t say brand Rebrand itself, but put itself out there as a company that wasn’t just a covid-19 manufacturer you’re doing a lot in the cancer space looking at other conditions that your mRNA technology could affect. Can you give us an update on next? I know a lot of people are saying what’s the next move? You know, what’s the sequel here?

Yeah, so we’re really leaning in on a number of different categories Beyond covid. So if you think about our pillars we’re

Detroit disease so it’s covid flu RSV. We’re going to have an RSV vaccine it flu vaccine. Eventually we’re gonna have a combination of possibly covid flu covid flu RSV. So respiratory is a key pillar oncology is a key pillar we add data last year and this year that demonstrates that are individualized neoantigen therapy is it’s working in our clinical studies versus Katrina and in combination with Katrina, and so that’s super exciting and then we also are looking at rare diseases and I think latent vaccines as well. So if you think about Epstein-Barr virus or side of megalovirus and we’re looking at all those categories and the cool thing and the exciting thing is that

MRNA actually works and our studies and across all these different disease categories. So

for us the challenge now is prioritizing. So which ones you know, we’re Limited in terms of resources. We can’t study everything all at once so which which categories are we going to lean into and I think right now we’re really leaning into respiratory oncology and rare those feel like that. They have the greatest potential to happen soonest. So that for us has been super exciting and what I want what my role is is to communicate this is to make sure people understand that we’re not just a cope with company and that we’re platform technology company that platform technology is mRNA and that we are able to use this across number of different different categories and disease areas. And so that’s really what we say when we talk about the MRN age and this changes everything. It’s it’s an agile way of studying. It’s we’re able to tweak for example our flu we’re able to tweak very quickly and change it.

Based on you know, what the new variance of concern are and it’s a model that’s very different from typical Pharmaceuticals.

And I imagine that goes into the fatigue the vaccine fatigue you mentioned earlier and being able to say oh, this is a One-Shot flu covid RSV. I did want to go the messaging aspect because I think about it from you know people that I speak with in my life. Who if I say modern I think their first into instinct is gonna be. Oh I got their vaccine I got covid is the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to that messaging. How do you measure success on that front? I imagine in the next, you know, five to ten years you would like to people just hear modern and they think oh, yeah, that’s where I got my RSV vaccine or they treat you know this condition and it’s outside of necessarily just covid. Yeah.

I mean, I think there is a built-in brand recognition, as you know prior to covid people did not recognize pharmaceutical company brands like you got a product you didn’t know who manufacture it was a BMS wasn’t no artist. I don’t know barely know the name of the product. So I think now we have this great brand recognition. And so people recognize the Darna and so creating the journey with them. RNA is great.

Because then we look at mRNA and say let’s educate around. Why should you care about mRNA and we’re equating that with Cutting Edge and Innovation because it is and so we’re connecting the dots for people so that when the next majornav vaccine or product comes out you can say yeah. I know I’ve heard about mRNA and I know I have mRNA in me and I’m interested in you know asking for modern vaccine or the next major product and I think it’s just it’s just a very it’s more of a consumer mindset that I think has not been typical in this category because a lot of times it’s usually the providers who are making those decisions, but I think because there’s a familiarity already with Madonna and what we do and mRNA. I think it’s just the next step is further educating and getting people to understand, you know, what are the products that are coming and being aware of, you know, our technology Works in their body

number four at this year’s cans lines Health International Festival of creativity, then to International earn the farm Alliance Grand Prix for scrolling therapy.

Experimental ai-based app launched for Brazil based Pharma company Euro Pharma that aims to help people with Parkinson’s slow down the progression of the disease while they scroll through social media.

In this conversation Colette Hawaii Global Chief creative officer of Denso Health described the global team effort behind the win this interview aired on September 21st, Jack spoke with do I about the conception and execution of scrolling therapy what it means for the Parkinson’s community and how it felt to take home the farmer Grand Prix Coco. How are you doing today?

Very well. Thank you.

I appreciate you being on the show and we’re gonna really focus the conversation around scrolling therapy. And for those in the audience that may be unaware. I would be surprised if anybody in our audiences. Can you give us just a quick overview of what scrolling therapy is that we can kind of get into the specifics of how it all came about.

Sure. Absolutely. First of all, I’m very excited to be here and talk about this because this this was a labor of love between Den Sue creative and densu health. It’s really a beautiful simple idea. It is an app that helps people with facial masking symptoms who are living with Parkinson’s disease and basically what this app does.

Allow them to still feel human to engage in social media. But while engaging in social media is to exercise their facial muscles while they’re engaging and they can actually use their their face expressions to actually navigate.

Social media, which is amazing, right? So a very simple app, it doesn’t necessarily seem seem simple when you think about what it can do but the idea was really allowing people with Parkinson’s to engage in social media while doing exercises that are typically very daunting

and I’m really kind of curious again. I kind of want to get into the origins of how it all came together because when I first heard about scrolling therapy, it was truly like an aha, like how did somebody not come up with that idea in the first place? And I wonder like how how it all came to be in terms of feedback. And you know, is this the way that we want to present it, you know, what was that process like

internally against you collectively we use this term called radical collaboration and it’s the first company truly that I’ve been at that truly practice is radical collaboration. So I was brought on about a year and a half ago to help launch density Health Solutions before there was a true formalized Solutions offering

And how it all came about which I think is a great story was really thought through and developed. The idea was developed in Argentina. Then we produced it in the US and then final production in Brazil. So really it was a global team effort to Think Through. What were some of the things right out of the gate was we were a brand new team working together. I was new to the team in Argentina vice versa production in Brazil. We were all coming together doing introductions, but needing to work together pretty fast and I thought what a brilliant turnout that we had because not knowing each other and having to get in and work so quickly together. We really did work as a team. So something like how did it come about health got involved because of course, I’ve been doing this now for 24 years Health the focus on health and we want to make sure that we are approaching, you know,

Kind of Health Initiative in the right way from a creative perspective densu created was very involved in the original idea. But then we’re thinking how do we make this come to fruition? We have a colleague of ours named Sebastian Porto who was diagnosed about six years ago with Parkinson’s disease and he was a an integral part of the story. I like to say that Seb was the heart of this story and how it how it came to life.

And he talked very early on before we even had real pen to paper yet about the importance of facial masking. And for those who don’t know what facial masking is is it literally freezes your facial muscles and you’re you you lose the fundamental right to express yourself, whether that be laughing or crying or being surprised and sep talked about in a way.

That he said he didn’t know much about it and his doctor mentioned it to him. And as he started talking around a lot of people didn’t realize that you know, there were exercises but for the people who did it was very daunting you have to go through 45 minutes of standing in the mirror to do these facial exercises.

It’s very lonely. It could be very degrading make someone feel childish if you will and quite frankly they tap out early. And so there’s a huge.

You know drop off only like 3% I believe it is engage in facial masking exercises. So

You know, the the insights really is not just one the insights that came together early on was talking about how can we use?

Something so simple like facial recognition and or something like the Insight of we spend close to two and a half hours a day on our phones and social media swiping.

And those conversations kept leading to more ideas of like could we actually help someone Parkinson’s use their facial exercises the way to navigate? So as those talks and you know, I wasn’t part of those early talks, but as those talks took place.

We realized that we are on to something very special and I got introduced to Seb pretty early on and and had a lot of wonderful conversations with him and all of us, so wanted this idea to live. So that’s where the radical collaboration came in understanding that. We were all from different disciplines that we needed to hit the ground running and running fast. If you will we were trying to make an April deadline for Parkinson’s awareness disease.

So that’s truly about how it started out so much more took place there after.

Health policy update with Lesha bushac

there may have been no earth-shattering policy changes in 2023 like the ones we saw in 2022 with Roe v Wade being overturned and the inflation reduction act signed into law but 2023 was still a relatively busy year on the health policy front All Things Considered with drug pricing mental health and AI regulation at the Forefront the year kicked off with Senator Bernie Sanders taking the Helm of the Sun at health education labor and pensions or help committee and vowing to rain in high drug costs in the quotes cruel and dysfunctional healthcare system in the US.

Sanders somewhat held true to that promise the help committees spent most of the Year holding hearings needling Pharmacy benefit managers or pbms over their role in Hydra costs some bipartisan packages focused on PBM reform have partially made their way through Congress like the better Mental Health Care lower cost drugs and extenders act. But the biggest drug pricing moves happened in the Medicare negotiation provision in the ira in August, the federal government announced the first 10 drugs, that would be part of the Medicare negotiation process all pharmacies including bristol-myer squib Johnson & Johnson and Mark agreed to participate albeit a bit reluctantly.

2023 was just the beginning of the Medicare negotiation process and it’s something that’s not going away anytime soon with major implications for those in the healthcare industry by September next year. We’ll expect to see the new prices of those first 10 drugs.

The Federal Trade Commission or FTC was also on a role in 2023 cracking down on the healthcare industry in the absence of broader Federal privacy regulation the FTC spent the year targeting companies like GoodRx Better Health and flow health over their use of Health Data for marketing purposes.

This year a new angle on Mental Health loneliness emerged on the policy front as well in May Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called out isolation as a real public health issue for the first time and as a major driver of the high rates of anxiety and depression in the US since then lawmakers have been working on Crafting legislation to address loneliness.

At the end of the year. We saw the Biden Administration make moves on AI regulation and Healthcare.

For the First Time The White House issued an executive order on AI that would require federal agencies to develop responsible AI standards and guidelines an issue that will carry into 2024 finally the Biden Administration announced in December that the federal government would be developing guidelines for the use of margin rights to lower drug costs for the first time.

Will likely continue to see that push for more drug pricing reform in 2024. I’m leshabushak senior reporter at mmm.

Welcome back to the top five number three pewish is in modern America are more polarizing and divisive than those surrounding the transgender Community where the farm and biotech Industries fit into this contentious Dynamic was the subject of this interview for that. We turn to Jennifer Peter founder and CIO of Iraqis Therapeutics and one of the few openly translators in biopharma petters spoke about how the biopharma industry can advance the struggle for lgbtqia plus progress this interview aired on June 21st, this conversation actually ran during pride month the annual month long occasion where lgbtqia+ members and allies celebrate and remember the history of the community.

Better weighed in with her thoughts regarding the ongoing debate around trans issues in America where progress stands and what the industry has done on that front and where there’s room for improvements.

I’m curious too when you talk about the support that these organizations have for their Workforce. I mean, it seems to kind of mirror what we see in the country over the past 20 to 25 years where there’s been a greater recognition of say the lgbtqia members that are in these organizations and the challenges and the needs that they face with from your own perspective. How have you seen that Evolution take place in Farmer? Maybe it’s some of the companies you’ve worked at. So let’s be clear that in in most of those past years. I was very much not out. And so I was not sort of testing the waters there and my own my own personal experience has all been inside of the company that I have right here, which is a racist Therapeutics and that’s been uniformly positive. I do talk now more a lot.

Acquaintances and friends in other companies in recent Boston area some of them biotech some of them Pharma and you know, there’s a range of responses. Sometimes the companies are very affirmational and are are very sort of overtly supportive and and you sort of get the sense that they’re kind of with you others. It does seem occasionally to be a bit of

I don’t want to say virtue signaling but you know doing what seems to be appropriate but not really going the extra mile and so you but though that means that those companies are in a position where

If you work with them, I think you can kind of get them to a better place what we’re not seeing is a lot of just over.

Some opposition or you know, and typically is that something that you ever think that maybe down the line we could progress to seeing companies do that or is that you know, somehow endangered their bottom line they say maybe that’s a British too far for us.

I don’t know the answer to that but I’m going to speculate that. There may be a certain caution and in approaching this and you know, if you just look at the simple calculus, you have to ask look you know, what what is our employee that’s our employee base becomes more more out do we necessarily want to to alienate such a large segment of the population? This is an employee base. Um, and oddly I think this is part of what’s going on at Disney is that you know, the creative community.

Um, there’s a lot of lgbtq people on that perhaps even overly overrepresented there. And so I do think that there’s an element of that that influences, you know, how the company ultimately

reacts and so I think that there’s

you I don’t get the sense that they that the companies in this area want to to turn their backs on their own sort of employee base how out there in front of the issue. They’re prepared to get I think really depends in some cases in the leadership at those companies. It’s interesting to hear you bring up that point about the workforce. I know in some of the leaders that I’ve spoken with they’ve kind of talked about you know, what we’ve seen out the great resignation and how employees are being more vocal in terms of what they expect from a company and on that topic of lgbtq Rights and support that’s been front and center in a lot of these conversations at least from leaders that I’ve spoken with over the past few months.

Yeah, I I think the notion.

that a company can

You know demand of you a certain closeted uniformity like we don’t want to hear about who you really are. Just appear to be.

A thing of the past. I mean, let’s hope it’s permanently a thing of the past. But right now it’s the thing of the past and and so you just can’t expect to thrive if you create an environment like

that.

I want to ask and this might be a broad question. So I apologize in advance. But if there’s any sort of message that you would send to maybe your peers are fellow leaders in the industry given that this is this interview is running during pride month. And obviously there’s a recognition of the lgbtq community but we’re also at this very pivotal moment in time where so much progress has been made over the past, you know a few decades and so much is still at stake in terms of you know, different segments of the community. You know, I think that for for smaller companies, it’s a matter of leadership.

Um, just kind of asking you know, the the employees like what do you think about this? And are we are we doing enough? And are we still there for you? I think you know in a larger company that kind of interaction can be tough to establish. But sometimes it’s a matter of going to your ergs. You know, it’s the CEO shows up in an ERG meeting says I’m just trying to catch up here and make sure that we’re not dropping the ball. It would be very positive very positive message and not not to make sure that it’s understood that the ERG is not a stop right that it’s actually something that’s a vehicle for producing some very positive change in the organization. So I think that will be helpful

number two as I noted in the intro. We not only featured some rock stars of biopharma this year in recognition of the contributions of celebrities to farm a marketing writ large. We also welcome to a couple of stars from the entertainment world. One of these was the actor Patrick Dempsey who spoke about

Telling and surprising Health angle his own cancer. Advocacy this interview aired on May 3rd for about a decade Dempsey played what became one of TV’s most well-known medical roles Dr. Derek Shepherd the neurosurgeon on Gray’s Anatomy. Well, he’s no longer a regular on that show Dempsey told me the TV series has repelled the newer role that of cancer Advocate Dempsey said he played a doctor on TV for so long that people now kind of project that on to him which facilitates his efforts to promote a line of cancer centers that aims to provide more holistic care to patients.

Dempsey also spoke about the inspiration behind the center his mom who passed away in 2014 after a long battle with ovarian cancer. Here’s a clip from the interview which aired a week or so prior to Mother’s Day Patrick. You played a doctor on TV, but as you pointed out that was a different discipline, right?

Yes indeed. He was a neurosurgeon and not in not until oncology.

Right but we’re here to follow up and talk a little bit more about your personal work in healthcare, including your collaboration with Pharma and your Center for people living with cancer. The Dempsey Center and one in three of us is diagnosed at some point in our life with cancer. So it’s

a staggering number one in three. Isn’t that something else

that’s in a

perspective. Yeah,

it does and that the type of work that we do. We don’t treat a disease we treat the person holistically. We just simply ask, how can we make your life better? We treat the whole family.

In a holistic way that complements traditional medicine and the oncology said that they can focus on their discipline and we can focus on the well-being of the patient and the family

so important

hugely important. I think, you know part of the healing process is really the human touch and compassion and empathy in a world that is as we see is really lacking that based I think because there’s so much fear in the world and

that was kind of your parting message, but you know, you also shared a lot about your mom. Thank you for that. Sorry, very meaningful in 1998. She was unfortunately diagnosed with cancer. You called it quote unquote a profound piece of news talk about your journey with your mom if you would particularly and it’s early stages was that like going through that with her.

My mother was always the strongest figure in the family, right? So to see her vulnerable and to get this diagnosis was so shocking to the entire family rocked our whole family destabilized.

That the unknown how long will she survive? Will she survive? How bad is this? What is this? All these questions emerged from that and thank goodness. My sister worked in the hospital so she could really navigate a lot of the things that most people can’t and to be able to get to the bottom of a lot of these tests why it’s taking so long. What does that mean? And thankfully she could get us through that but I was thinking so what happened to other families. I mean, we talked a little bit about this on stage. So that was sort of the initial way and then what can I do to support my mother’s Journey? Well, you know, what information do I need to tell what what can I do and then finding out that answer that was a challenge that took some time

right? And that was the key question as you put it if we we have this great resource in your sister who worked in the Healthcare System, but what if others don’t right was the impetus behind the center

the information is coming at you so quickly when the doctor only has a limited amount of

Before they go to the next patient so, you know, it’s like bringing a recorder and tape the conversation so you can remember it because it’s just too overwhelming. You don’t know how to process it because the fear gets in the way or another thought will dominate and you’re no longer listening you’re out of the moment and all of these things occurred. So that was what was informing us on. Okay, what are other people dealing with how are they coping with us?

Yeah,

they have the skills. You know, some people do some people don’t

it’s a wonderful way to take that and do something with it, you know the center as you says focused on treating the whole person encompassing scientific and medical efforts as well as complementary care you talk about acupuncture Reiki you started in Maine, but you’re branching out give listeners an update. If you would on that both in terms of the number of people you’re helping and how you’re expanding,

right? So the first quarter we’re going into 23, we are 57% up on what we were reaching last year and that has a lot to do with our Outreach to the the doctors and the the oncologist really

Make it there, they’re doing the referrals. So they’re they’re listening to their doctors and they’re coming to us and

Getting Word of Mouth from other patients have been through other family members who are getting benefit from the treatments that we’re giving. So that’s how it’s been starting. They’re about nine thousand people that are newly diagnosed every year in Maine maybe 10,000 now, my big is of covid. A lot of people did not get in to get their screenings and now their cancer is a little bit further along in our need is that much greater? So we are now as I said 57% up. So we’re at 1600 people that we servicing in the first quarter. So in our goal is to really reach everyone who is newly diagnosed in the state of Maine as well as staying with the survivors. So that’s where we’re at. We are in conversation with California New Hampshire and New York to have another Center in connection and collaboration with those people and we’re working in 35 States now

and overseas as well

and overseas as well. Yes

amazing. So

we’re slowly getting out there. The message is getting there which is

Goal is to connect with other like-minded centers and to sort of spread the gospel. If you will of complementary

medicine

and you talked about the importance of Physicians being aware of it as a resource for their patients.

Yeah, because in my mom’s treatment when we talked about this a little bit is that she had a doctor that was really good scientifically and sort of in that discipline, but just had a terrible bedside manner so it’s really how do you bring compassion and empathy care to a patient’s life. I mean that makes a big difference. I mean it has a huge.

Impact on one’s healing time frame.

Right? Right and while they’re you know, battling it, you know to man. Yeah,

you want to safe place where you can be heard and you’re not rushed that you are meeting them as human beings not just as a number.

Yeah, you spoke with Steve as we said about the importance of supporting the patient as well as the person which is the philosophy behind the center. There’s so much that goes into treating the whole person when they’re battling this illness big topic, but perhaps can you talk about where you see the biggest unmet need, you know, what aspects of a person’s care are the most overall.

We know what we’re seeing and what the data is revealing is really the online services and emotional support groups are really key and the counselors that’s that’s number one and certainly in rural Maine the ability to be able to communicate with someone if they’re three hours away if they can jump online that saves them money as far as the fuel cost and getting to that place and also their home, right which is a much better place for them to be we want to get them out of the hospital and back home in a safer environment a healthier environment. You’re seeing statistically that if you can get someone out of the hospital and back home the survival rate the recovery rate is that much greater. So we’re seeing that through our online services through Dempsey connects that’s been something that has been accelerated due to covid acupuncture Reiki second and third in in services that we provide that are very popular and of course nutrition online yoga meditation things like that all those things. Terrific.

Number one pretty Williams brought a compelling Health angle of his own Williams is best known for having played.

MLB for 16 years all of it with the New York Yankees, but his father’s guitar playing ignated a passion for music one, which he’s leveraging in the latest phase of a bearing or ingelheim back to rare disease awareness campaign. William spoke about how jazz guitar and is involvement in the bi campaign has helped him process the loss of his dad this interview originally aired on March 2nd celebrities and influencers are playing an increasingly important role in Farmers patients and disease advocacy efforts and Williams’s case. We spoke about bi’s National respiratory campaign breathless, which is designed to raise awareness of a group of rare lung conditions and how music May support those living with these conditions. I was also fascinated to learn that Bernie views is longtime involvement in disease. Advocacy as his way of processing loss of his father, which came during his story Yankees career during the course of the conversation it became clear that this was no ordinary celebrity endorsement but something much deeper and personal here’s the clip of the interview which Eric just after rare disease’s day. Your story has allowed bearing her to reach millions of people across the country.

With with these messages about awareness and you know recognizing science and symptoms and then the need for timely care so it you know, from what I hear it’s really making an impact that said you’ve been partnering, you know with this company since 2017. I believe that’s that’s a number good number of years there. So it’s it’s clearly very important to you personally. So just wondering if you could tell us more about you know, what not only what you know drove you initially to partner, but what keeps you involved, you know, what motivates you to continue to stay involved in this and make it such a signature effort.

Well, I’ve seen the first hand the impact that our methods have and people that are affected by the prior to 2020 you mentioned 2017. I mean for three years, I was really hands on traveling to all these places that baseball have given me a platform to be on behalf of this call and I’ve gotten

Great and positive feedback, you know from patients, you know get a chance to hear the story. And by the way, it has been a great way for me to process still the grieving process that I’ve got over the years and when I myself passed away 2001, like I said before I was immersed in the season and I was doing a lot of things that didn’t really allow me to fully go through my breathing process with my dad and everything that happened. I sort of kept living life year after year playing baseball and that sort of put that in the back burner until I retired and I was able to be a part of this campaign has been in many ways very therapeutic for me to relive those emotions and actually share them with people and tell my story and the story of my family to this ordeal and listening to other people similar story about their loved one and even patience, you know talking to me.

You know about you know what they’re going through and really being appreciative of the efforts that we’re having to bring awareness to this cause has been very positive or everywhere that I’ve gone and did 2020 happened and then another respiratory illness sort of took

Terrace

president and you know, he became even more about poignant to talk about these are interstitial long diseases in in a more direct way having, you know, obviously have been a covid and related things happening. So in fact, I couldn’t do the sort of day to day and kind of traveling from City to the city to do my awareness campaign with the side to utilize the song that I wrote for my dad. That’s part of an initiative to even have the awareness of process so we decided to

Lyrics to the tune which was originally composed as a instrumental tune and while we had a bit of a contest that we had about 70 plus increase in the people trying to put lyrics to this tune enough. We had a winner and the winner was able to you know to lend us his lyrics and we were able to record this tune and put lyrics to it.

actually your

in the Scrapbook of my memories

every day, I think of what you’ve done for me and the bread of life you gave now it have a different title more poignant to the campaign, but it’s the same tune in our husband a source of great satisfaction, you know having that sort of relive That Tune that was made in 2001 more than 20 years ago and kind of make it sort of a theme of this great campaign and having lyrics and breathe a new life, you know, literally breathe a new life to the to the song has been what the sources of great source of Pride and and I know my dad is looking down and really happy with what has happened with that the whole campaign in the efforts that we’re doing to raise awareness the thing that killed

absolutely I’m sure he is and

You’re just in case people are unaware, when the pandemic sidelined your Stadium appearances you and bi launched this you called. I think you caught up the breathless ballad challenge which we have without it. Correct us, right the public contest to write lyrics to the instrumental tribute to your father, which you mentioned para Don Burna and I think you had a jury comprised of Queen Latifah, right the Bacon Brothers and Paul Schaefer and the results of a documentary that bi sponsored Beyond breathless. So can you comment on what’s next for the campaign?

Well, I think we are trying to maximize, you know, the platform that baseball gives us every year official in the summer. We’re trying to reach out to all these communities, you know that has a major incident in these cases in trying to you know, rent The Gospel about you know, early diagnosis and you know having people, you know deal with the symptoms and not not really procrastinating to go into the doctor and get checked out and you know, those efforts are you know, they have proven to have an impact in many lives partnering with the homeowner Fibrosis Foundation as well and doing some work with them, you know in conjunction with this so interconnected and it has legs and it has the ability to impact people in my community and all over the country and I’m you know, just very delighted to be part of this process and the evolution of this process going into long Health incorporating music.

As a tour as a resource in dice this kind of falling writing and to what I’m doing, you know right now and it’s I’m very proud and very eager to continue the efforts to raise awareness about that intercessional diseases.

Well, you’ve done it again, you’ve burned another hour. So every day listen to the M&M podcasts just kidding a big thanks to my co-host Jack and Lesha to produce your bill Fitzpatrick and to all the listeners out there. We invite you to go back and listen to any of these in full if you like check out the podcast page on our website where you can find these episodes on Apple iTunes or anywhere you get your podcasts and you can look forward to more great audio content coming your way in the new year. Happy New Year everybody.