An Introduction to Nura Life Sciences
Biophysics: A Compelling Solution to the Healthcare Conundrum
One remedy for America\’s broken healthcare system lies in the adoption of biophysics- centric therapies. When integrated into patient care, the application of such biophysics technologies will produce better patient outcomes and will reduce current Payor expenditures substantially. Nura Life Sciences was created to implement business models that institutionalize such therapeutic modalities. The science is solid, the plan is bold and the human capital involved is extraordinary.
What\’s Wrong With Healthcare?
There is broad recognition that the U.S. healthcare system is in desperate need of repair. Among many causes for dissatisfaction is the fact that 75% of the money spent on healthcare in the U.S., less then $1.8 trillion annually, is spent on chronic care [Article Note #1]. By definition, chronic care is chronic because the aggregate of products and services offered do not resolve the patient\’s problem. This is a stark reality for the patient, as well as for any professional delivering healthcare services. From an engineering perspective, this implies that something is not right about how we think about and measure chronic disease. In engineering, when something doesn\’t work one learns to try something else. Unfortunately, participants in our healthcare services delivery system are not trained to employ such engineering principles. Moreover, implementing such an approach requires that one has real-time data to assess what is working and what is not. Unfortunately, our healthcare delivery system does not engage in capturing real-time patient data. In general, process improvement is not woven into the fabric of healthcare services. The dysfunction of our healthcare system goes deeper than this, though. It goes to the heart of what we think we know, and why we think we know it. The American “system” for healthcare exemplifies the wisdom of Einstein\’s dictum: “You cannot solve a problem using the same thought process used to create the problem in the first place.”
The Founder of Nura Life Sciences, though trained in neuropharmacology, developed his business reputation in pension finance. He authored the first pension governance fiduciary training program in the country and consulted on the fiduciary management of over $100 billion in retirement assets globally. Fortune 500 companies and sovereign governments that utilized the methodology he authored changed their behavior with regard to the management of billions of long-term Trust assets. With his global reputation and skills as an efficiency expert in that field, he brings a unique process improvement lens to developing a solution to the conundrum of healthcare. That effort, which includes 10,000 hours of research and development, resulted in the creation of Nura Life Sciences. Nura is an extraordinary team of 40+ clinicians, scientists and business leaders who have come together to implement a unique and substantive opportunity: Implementing business models that integrate biophysics into clinical medicine. More so than any conventional healthcare approaches, biophysics has the ability to positively impact chronic disease, where healthcare\’s greatest expense is concentrated. The value of this approach is straightforward: It will lead to better patient outcomes and reduced Payor costs.
The Evolution of Scientific and Medical Innovation
As the name implies, “Biophysics” is the multidisciplinary study at the intersection of physics and biology. Specifically, we use the term to refer to the observations of bioactivity in response to the application of energetic stimuli such as light, coherent light, magnetic and electrical fields. This bioactivity appears to reflect a significant regulatory impact on human physiology. Though people may be unfamiliar with the term “Biophysics”, many are familiar with the use of lasers (photons oscillating at a specific wavelength) in clinical medicine, which is an example of one biophysics modality. Another example of biophysics at work is trans-cranial magnetic stimulation, a modality now used for the treatment of various behavioral disorders. It is useful to note that both modalities, which were once considered “unusual” or “out-there”, are now well established scientifically, and widely accepted in clinical medicine.
In its pure form, a theory that accommodates and explains more scientific observations (those that are measurable and replicable) than some other theory, is likely to be a more accurate description of real world events. Biophysics offers a new lens from which we can view health and disease. It allows for a more coherent model than the one which “modern” medicine is predicated, the “reductionist” model. Reductionism is derived from an 18th century perspective on biology when the quest for understanding human physiology was driven by the identification of the individual parts of the body and their connections at a micro level. The greatest failing of this approach is that is does not take into account that which is not seen when studying the component parts of a “system”.
In other words, reductionism fails to recognize that the human body is a single integrated biochemical and electromagnetic system. It does not incorporate the fact that, in a complex biological system, there are characteristics and properties of the system that are operational ONLY when the system is intact and interactive, in accordance with its design. When the components of this system are studied separately, the electromagnetic relationship between the components is lost. Quite literally, as it\’s practiced, clinical medicine does not give this notion much credence. However, there is NO scientific basis for believing that the reductionist approach is any better at accommodating scientific observations into a more coherent representation of the real world. Indeed, one can argue that the $1.8 trillion statistic cited previously may be evidence that the conventional reductionist approach to understanding human health and disease is simply insufficient. There is reason to believe that this is the case.
Here is one example as to why reductionism may be insufficient: It is an established fact in electrical engineering that a magnetic field accompanies an electrical charge, and travels at a 90-degree angle to the flow of the current. Though this principle of electromagnetics is well known by college students who take Engineering 101, it isn\’t taught in Biology 101 or in medical or nursing school. Therefore, it is not well-known by clinicians who treat patients. Just as important, physicists are not quite sure why this is so. Just because we don\’t know the underlying physics involved, it doesn\’t mean we can\’t engage biophysics technologies as tools for our collective benefit. That is indeed the benefit for the patients and Payors of healthcare.
Given that electrical gradients and charges are fundamental to the operation of the brain, the heart, all musculature, and even the functionality of cell membranes [Article Note #2], what is the likelihood that the magnetic fields that accompany electrical charges have no regulatory impact on human physiology? From an evolutionary biology point of view, it seems highly unlikely. In the same vein, how likely is it that photons, which are known by physicists to “carry” the electromagnetic field in subatomic space, are irrelevant to human physiology? Given that we are born on a planet bathed in photons from a nearby sun, it seems unlikely.
Once one listens to physicians who use biophysics technologies in their practices, and once one takes a deep dive into the National Institute of Health database (known as “Pubmed”), one is hard pressed to find ANY example of any lasting adverse patient reactions to the use of these tools and technologies. Further evidence of patient safety comes from an examination of the claims made to the technology manufacturers\’ product liability insurers. In one case, a technology insured by Alliance (of Germany), had only one claim made in 16 years. This claim was for 160 Euros. That is hardly what one might expect from medical devices sold in the United States.
Once we saw that patient safety was a non-issue, and that efficacy was supported by published scientific studies and the experience of leading practitioners of integrative medicine, the only task left was to develop a business model. That model had to take into account the dysfunctional nature of healthcare and the payment system, which keeps it stuck, and then lay out a path that would enable clinical medicine to embrace innovation.
Nura has constructed such a model and has applied that model to various segments of the institutional healthcare space. A vital component for implementing Nura\’s business model is leadership with the courage to drive change in institutions not known for innovation. We are pleased to say that we have found those proverbial “needles in the haystack”.
At an investment conference focused on fiduciary conduct a couple of years ago, the CEO of Nura, Wayne Miller, had the opportunity to ask those assembled why the concept of Socially Responsible Investing even existed. After all, if SRI was a small subset of the investible universe, what did that make the rest of them? Were they socially irresponsible or socially unconscious investors? Why didn\’t the people assembled at this conference greet one another by asking, “How is your socially irresponsible portfolio doing?”
The answer to that question is more obvious now than it was then.
It simply was not how we thought about money or investing. We suspect that most of us think differently about that now. Our sensibility of money and investing has changed. If we can now apply that shift to healthcare by institutionalizing biophysics-based clinical medicine, perhaps, just perhaps, we can create a more coherent system for care – a system that costs payors less, and produces more effective results for patients.
It may not “cure” all of what ails this country. Alas, it is a worthy start.
Article Notes:
[1] The Healthcare Imperative: Lowering costs and Improving Outcomes. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Published 2-24-11. (http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12750.html )
[2] McCraig, Collin D. et al., Electrical Dimensions in Cell Science. J. of Cell Science, 122, 4267-4276, 2009.
Article Source: Nura Life Sciences
