The BAMF Health Story and the Rise of Theranostics

Hosts Dr. Brandon Mancini (Medical Director at BAMF Health) and Christine VanTimmeren (Marketing Manager) introduce listeners to the groundbreaking field of Theranostics, a form of precision medicine that combines advanced imaging with targeted radiopharmaceutical therapies to diagnose and treat disease.

To kick off the series, they are joined by Chad Bassett, co-founder and COO of BAMF Health. Chad shares the origin story of the organization, including how a chance meeting with founder Anthony Chang led to a bold vision: building the world’s most advanced Theranostics center.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• The meaning behind the name BAMF Health 
• Why Theranostics is emerging as the next major pillar of cancer care
• How BAMF Health was designed to integrate radiopharmaceutical production, imaging, and therapy in one place
• The role of clinical trials in bringing new treatments to patients faster
• The patient-centered philosophy that guides every aspect of care
• The future of Theranostics in treating cancer, chronic pain, Alzheimer’s disease, and more

0:00 – Welcome to the BAMF Health Podcast
 0:25 – Meet the Hosts: Dr. Brandon Mancini & Christine VanTimmeren
 2:19 – What is Theranostics? The Science Behind BAMF Health
 4:24 – Why We Started the Podcast
 6:16 – Introducing Our Guest: BAMF Health Co-Founder Chad Bassett
 7:29 – The Origin Story of BAMF Health
 9:20 – Why BAMF Health Was Built as a For-Profit Company
 12:18 – Treating the First Patients and Early Growth
 14:10 – What Makes the Patient Experience Different at BAMF
 18:18 – The Role of “Time” in Patient Care
 20:15 – Humanizing Healthcare
 21:31 – The Future of Theranostics and Precision Medicine
 22:29 – New Frontiers: Cancer, Pain, and Alzheimer’s
 27:08 – Measuring Success: Giving Patients More Time
 27:33 – Chad Bassett’s Personal “Why”
 30:01 – Closing Thoughts

Connect with the hosts on LinkedIn
Brandon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-mancini-md-mba-facro-44646758/ 
Christine: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinevt/

Connect with BAMF Health
Website: https://www.bamfhealth.com/
Our Podcast: https://www.bamfhealth.com/podcast/

Connect with the hosts on LinkedIn
Dr. Brandon Mancini
Christine VanTimmeren

Connect with BAMF Health
Our Website
Our Podcast

Transcript

Christine VanTimmeren 0:05

Hi, I'm Christine Van Timmeren.

Dr. Brandon Mancini 0:07

And I'm Brandon Mancini.

Christine VanTimmeren 0:09

And this is the BAMF Health Podcast. This is episode one of the BAMF Health Podcast. So thank you for joining us. We are super excited for this.

Dr. Brandon Mancini 0:18

Absolutely. No, long time coming. We've been planning lots of hard work, lots of good guests coming ahead. So it's awesome to have the day finally here.

Christine VanTimmeren 0:26

Yeah, we're super excited to share guests and topics and all these interesting things with you. But before we get into our guests and what we're going to talk about on the podcast, let's introduce ourselves. So, Brandon, let's start with you.

Dr. Brandon Mancini 0:37

Yep. So I'm Brandon Mancini. I'm the medical director at BAMF Health and kind of the main physician that's seeing patients each and every day, prescribing therapies, uh, ordering imaging and kind of uh doing things from a medical direction and physician standpoint. Uh radiation oncologist by background. Uh, so traditionally kind of trained and was operating within the space of delivering radiation therapy for cancer patients primarily. Um, and then kind of had a uh meeting with our uh founder and CEO, Anthony Chang, years ago. We stayed in touch and this amazing opportunity came about. So uh it's been an awesome road so far. And uh yeah, it's been amazing.

Christine VanTimmeren 1:14

So you're the doc on the podcast. I am the marketer on the podcast. So I'm the marketing manager for BAMF Health. So really have the pleasure of telling the BAMF Health story each and every day, the story of our people, the story of our patients, the story of our company and what we're doing. And it truly is an honor to do. Uh, but I have a background in marketing and public relations, and I started my career in TV as a TV news anchor and reporter. So I'm kind of getting back to my roots a little bit with the podcast, excited for the camera aspect of the podcast as well as the audio. And speaking of that, we are a video and audio podcast. So, those of you who are listening to us, guess what? If you want to see your beautiful faces, you can go over to our YouTube page and watch us on YouTube. So a little bit of both there. Absolutely. Um okay, we've introduced ourselves. They know who we are, the doc and the marketer. Let's talk about BAMF Health and the kind of work we do. Since you are the doc and sort of the expert in the medicine, give us a breakdown of what BAMF Health is.

Dr. Brandon Mancini 2:19

Yeah, sure. So BAMF Health is the world's most advanced Theranostics Center. So Theranostics is this big word. Um, but what we do each and every day is targeted precision radiopharmaceutical therapy. And so primarily that's within the cancer space. So targeted radiation medicines that seek out cancer cells that attack those cancer cells and keep the rest of the body relatively unharmed. Um, and there's a lot of advancement in this space, a lot of excitement, research, clinical trials, and uh other aspects within this precision medicine field. And there's never been a center that's assembled to what BAMF Health has been. So we have the ability to produce uh radio tracers to then image our patient. We have the ability to then scan those patients with super high-resolution uh scanners, both from an MRI and a PET scan perspective, so that you can see exactly what's going on with a high degree of confidence. And then we have the therapy as well in clinical trials. And so it's kind of that one-stop shop for all of the necessary components of this theranostics treatment. And again, theranostics being this high precision-based medicine utilizing radiopharmaceuticals, where many have deemed this as like this future next pillar in cancer care that's currently in this evolution and revolution uh to establish itself across the world. So it's an exciting time to be a part of all of this. Um, and really, we're right at the beginning. Even though we've been doing this for several years so far, uh, really the best days are still ahead.

Christine VanTimmeren 3:50

We're headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but we treat patients from around the country and around the world. Um, we just happen to be in Grand Rapids. And actually, speaking of Grand Rapids, if you were watching on YouTube, the City of Grand Rapids is right behind us here. That truly is the street that BAMF Health is on. We're just out of view back there, but we're back there, I promise. Um, so exciting to see that background here. So we practice precision medicine, theranostics, but the podcast is going to expand a little bit beyond theranostics too.

Dr. Brandon Mancini 4:24

Yep. No, I think from a podcast perspective, we want to be in our podcast era like several others are across the world. Um, but we want to share what we do, tell the story, right, and kind of inform listeners and those that are interested in maximizing their health, kind of in uh a state where they're not diagnosed with anything, when they want to be proactive, when they're investing time and effort into maintaining health over time, but also to make them aware of some of these amazing advancements in the cancer therapy uh world as well as Alzheimer's and other neurocognitive uh diseases as well. And so kind of that one-stop shop where uh we're talking medicine, we're talking healthcare, we're talking with lots of neat people from medical backgrounds to athletes to social influencers and beyond, really just kind of encompassing everything that's involved with healthcare when it's all said and done. And we really want to listen and hear from people that are watching and listening to us uh to know what's on their mind, what is something that they've read or seen or heard about recently that they want to find out more about, and we can get the right guest and interview that person and kind of do a deep dive into those sorts of topics. So uh kind of that one-stop shop. We want to be that trusted healthcare uh team. Um, and this is our podcast form of doing so uh outside of the clinic.

Christine VanTimmeren 5:45

I love it. So if you're listening and this is a new company name for you, you've never heard of it. I'm sure some people are going, I don't even understand the name, the words, what is it? So we keep saying BAMF Health. So I'm gonna spell it out. It's B A M F BAMF Health. It stands for Bold Advanced Medical Future. I think there's a couple other places people may have seen the acronym BAMF, but for us it means bold advanced medical future. Uh so yeah, we kind of like that. Um, but beyond our name, we also want to introduce people to the story of BAMF and what we do.

Dr. Brandon Mancini 6:25

Absolutely. And I think there's such an amazing history. And uh from a BAMF Health perspective, I mean, you and I joined and have been around for several years. Uh, but that leads us right into our special guest of honor today, which is our co-founder and COO, Chad Bassett. So, Chad, we welcome you.

Christine VanTimmeren 6:42

Come on in episode one. Welcome, welcome to the BAMF Health Podcast.

Chad Bassett 6:48

Thrilled to be here, thrilled to talk about BAMF Health, always.

Christine VanTimmeren 6:51

Yeah, how does it feel to be giving people, I don't know, a look inside BAMF in a new way through a podcast.

Chad Bassett 6:58

That's exactly who we are. We have a TikTok account, an Instagram account, we have amazing websites, stories, patients who love to do cool things like play the guitar. Me too. And so we get to show that in so many different ways. How awesome is that. So that's great. Natural evolution and uh two amazing hosts. I'm thrilled that you guys are doing this. Thank you for uh for uh what you're doing.

Dr. Brandon Mancini 7:22

Absolutely. So yeah, I think as far as kind of the history of BAMF, right? You've been with this from day one, right? With Anthony Chang, our co-founder. Um, I think it's important to understand where we've been, right? The who, what, where, when, how. So take us back to those initial days. Like, how did this all come about? How were you first introduced to the idea? And what were things like when things were first started out for BAMF Health?

Chad Bassett 7:47

We are so lucky that uh we started in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And that's why I love this amazing place, this cool shop behind us. So a lot of it happened naturally from connections. Uh, Dr. Chang worked doing incredible research at the Van Andel Institute. I was serving on one of its boards, and a fellow member said, you've really got to talk to Anthony. He's doing incredible things. You have to learn about it. And it really started from there. We we we met. We met at a place in Saugatuck, Michigan. Awesome, fun place for vacation. Shout out to Sagatuck. You go there, go there, um, winning if you can, at a place called Phil's Diner. And they use butcher paper on the tablecloth and have crayons. And Anthony drew out a beautiful 40-year vision of precision medicine. And it really blew my mind in each step built on the previous step, one after the other. And sometimes you just get those true YOLO overused words, but it was a true YOLO opportunity to join with a visionary who wanted to and is now impacting not only human health, but individual patients in an unbelievably real way. So that was our first meeting, and um super uh thank God for that meeting.

Christine VanTimmeren 9:11

Yeah. So BAMF is a for-profit company, but if you know Anthony, if you know you, if you know anyone at BAMF, none of us are doing it for the money. That's not why we got into it. So, what is the why behind BAMF and why it exists?

Chad Bassett 9:26

One of the things that Anthony thought about is how do we get this life-saving, life-changing infrastructure to people who need it as soon as possible? And he thought, what format should we use? Should I do this inside of a large health system? Should I do this inside of an academic system? Should I do this with a university, a nonprofit? How can we go fast because cancer won't wait? People's lives are depending on it. And after examining all those different formats, Anthony thought it needs to be for profit so others can see the value of this, invest in it, and help scale not only here in Grand Rapids to Henry Ford and Detroit, but very soon across the country and what I believe will be around the world as well.

Dr. Brandon Mancini 10:17

No, it's amazing. And I think I've always admired Anthony and your vision from day one because he was years ahead of others as far as in the United States and world realizing what was coming down the pipeline from this theranostics, from this precision medicine and molecular imaging and therapy perspective, where he identified a problem before anyone even knew it existed, right? The infrastructure aspect. When I'm at conferences, when I'm talking with other people, it becomes very apparent very quickly like how difficult someone's current situation is where they want to help, they want to start a program, they want to grow it, but they're confined to what space they have or uh the motivation within a department to kind of embark on that journey. So identifying that before everyone else, I mean, visionary is absolutely just the right descriptor because um years ahead uh when it's all said and done. And obviously, as things have advanced from prostate cancer therapy, neurodocrine tumor therapy, now Alzheimer's and beyond, it's very apparent even further that you need a large footprint, you need a lot of experience and kind of tools to get these things done and do it at the in the right way uh at a high level.

Chad Bassett 11:28

So it was hard uh to be so visionary. I think a lot of founders and a lot of visionary leaders would share that same story. How do you tell the world about something that doesn't exist and how you're going to bring that to fruition? So it was an amazing vision. It remains an amazing vision that we're only accelerating on how we'll deliver. But wow, were there ups and downs and ups and downs? But Christine, one of your previous questions was the why. And what I didn't get to before is it's the people and their families who are suffering and have been praying and waiting for a solution. That's our why. I think that's everyone at BAMF's why, why we do this, why we get up every single day and think what can we do 1% better? Because that's going to make an impact on a life and a family.

Christine VanTimmeren 12:22

And we've grown since day one. We started treating patients in 2022. So you started right there. And what we started with was sort of this small group of patients who most of whom didn't even know what the medicine was exactly. And now we've expanded. So explain how that growth has happened and how uh you and Anthony have sort of envisioned and planned for that growth and that expansion over the years.

Chad Bassett 12:54

Part of the initial growth was the need and sharing that with others. And one of the absolute, you know, most important ways we did that was with Dr. Mancini. He has a phenomenal reputation, an unbelievable uh network of doctors, physicians, and patients that trust him. And so when you're bringing on something new, it's important to not just say, hey, this is new, this might work, but to have that exceptional medical professional who will walk you and your family through really challenging decisions and share why this has the opportunity to work for them. Um so we've been really fortunate first to have a great team. Everybody at BAMF is unbelievable. Um I have to say it, we we've implemented patient satisfaction scores in the business world, NPS net promoter scores. Ours are unheard of off the charts. And that's because of the leadership of Dr. Mancini, our nurses, our team, and everybody that supports them, all the way from the radio pharmacy to marketing as well. And so it's one team that's really serving a common purpose. So I think we've been able to scale organically, word of mouth. You know, I've had people say, wow, I've had a PET scan somewhere else, or an MRI somewhere else, or a CT somewhere else, and I will never go there again. Um, because we truly do things the right way. Uh, answer the phone calls, get people scheduled on time, have people show up to their appointments, greet them, make sure they have a safe and comfortable experience, explain every step of the way, get those scans done on unbelievably powerful uh pieces of equipment that are quite literally the best in the world, stay them into therapy, into our software, into our AI. It quite literally is the best. And that's what we've designed to ultimately partner with other health systems and enable this to expand first to Detroit, others very soon. I bet you have some exciting guests lined up who are gonna want to talk about new locations that are, I think, gonna be announced days very soon, right? Um, and it's just gonna go from there because it's a zero-to-one impact, like the Peter Thiel book. It is not just a percent better or two percent better. This is a night and day difference for patients who need it. And so I think it's inevitable, but we're uh making the inevitable happen in a sustainable, scalable way.

Christine VanTimmeren 15:37

So a really practical example of that is Brandon and I have the pleasure to talk to our patients all the time and hear about their experience. And a lot of our patients have been through the cancer system and have had treatment after treatment for years and sometimes decades, right? Like they understand how the medical field works and has worked because of their experience. They come here and they say it's not just a field that's different, it's not just people are nice. You literally take time with them and show them things that they've never seen before in their potentially decades of cancer journey.

Dr. Brandon Mancini 16:15

Yeah, I I think our mission from day one, and it can sound cliche, but it's literally imagining people like that's your family, that's your best friend, that's yourself sitting across from. And how would you want to experience that appointment with your provider to help you get through something that you'd rather not be going through? Right. Right now, a lot of what we do is treating stage four or cancer that has spread throughout the body and with life-prolonging therapies that make them feel better on average, but we're dealing with pretty heavy and serious stuff on a day-to-day basis. And so that can be quite difficult. And when we first started back in 2022, like we were the end-of-the-line therapy, right? When it was first approved, the treatment that we deliver, it was approved to give after a bunch of previous uh years worth of therapies. And so it was kind of that last hope. So there's kind of an interesting um heaviness to that, um, where you want it to work, you want it to work well, you want to give that quality and quantity of life back to that person in that uh family. But really going through that process, like what do people want? They want time, they want understanding, they want to see what we're talking about, right? We get all of our reports and lab information and imaging reports, and we don't know what that stuff means on paper. Having someone talk them through that and just get it down to the understanding of the process is super rewarding, I think. And um just assist them, you build that rapport, you build that trust, and honestly, you kind of just do it the right way. Like time is the number one thing that people want. And I think time with a provider is such a valued thing these days. And we take as much time as that person wants. Sometimes it's 20 minutes, sometimes it's two to three hours. It's whatever that person needs for that understanding, for that comfort. Uh, that's what we do.

Chad Bassett 18:06

I love, I want to just interject real quick. Sorry if this is you know off the questions, but time is such an important word to us. And I think that's another one of our whys at BAMF. So everything that we do is related to time. How do we get the patient in faster? Get them to see the provider faster. But then when it's important to not be fast, how do you spend the right quality time with the provider or the clinical team? Then let's go back to fast again. Fast scans, three, four, five minutes versus 20, 30, 40 somewhere else, uh, fast results back, fast follow-up. All while a disease is potentially progressing in a body that needs to have that urgency. And from a patient's uh state of mind standpoint, they want to know you're working on it. And that's what we're doing. So everything that we do comes down to the right amount of time. Ultimately, our hope is that the treatment then gives them more quality time. And quality, and I'm sure you'll talk about a lot about this in episodes coming up, but quality time is really what we're going for. Uh, more happy birthdays, more quality time with family, more holidays, more time doing the things you love to do.

Christine VanTimmeren 19:30

So from day one, you and Anthony knew you wanted to bring this field of medicine to the United States, really, because it largely didn't exist or didn't exist. But did you have in your mind that you also wanted to do it differently? So it wasn't just about the medicine and bringing the medicine, but it was doing it differently too.

Chad Bassett 19:50

Always, always from day one of there's such an opportunity in all of healthcare to move it from what's been a system and uh a cold product to something that is an experience and recognizing it's a devastating moment, a devastating time for that individual and their family. So how can you make it better? It's not, it can't be Disney World, you know, it can it can't be a spa, but it can be different. It can be humanized, it can be a warmer experience, it can be a comforting experience. And that's what we're really looking to do. And you quite simply it's summed up in doing it the right way. And what's been uh almost terrifying for me to realize is some of the things that we're doing seem so basic, but it's not happening for patients elsewhere. And so it's it's quite simply meeting the patient where they need to be met and treating them like a human, uh treating them just like what you said, Brandon, of what if this was my mom on the other line? What if it was my child? What if it was my best friend? That's how we want to approach patient care.

Christine VanTimmeren 21:14

So where do we go from here? Where is BAMF headed next? I know we talked about partnerships and you know the announcements that will be coming. Um, and maybe the the question is more broad than that. Where where do we go from here in this in this industry?

Chad Bassett 21:31

I'll tackle the medical side only only slightly, and that's you know what what Dr. Mancini can get into. But we believe it's an inevitability that this type of medicine, this theeronostics, precision medicine practice, is an inevitability for all cancers. Right now, it's almost any stage of prostate cancer. If you or a loved one have prostate cancer, your phone call should be to BAMF Health. Uh neuroendocrine cancer. Very well established there. But we're also running an unbelievable amount of clinical trials where we have some of the first inhuman, first in the world, first in the US for cancers like lung, breast, brain, kidney, uh, sarcomas. Uh, and that list continues to grow. That will continue to grow, and it will be an inevitability someday that all cancers will be treated like this. There's also a ton of other applications, uh, an early promising one that I believe we'll see some profound clinical trials on soon, deal with pain. Millions and millions of people across the country and around the world uh deal with chronic pain that causes them to not lead the life they want to live. It impacts their work tremendously. And oftentimes pain isn't physically in the body where it might feel like it is. So being able to identify and pinpoint where pain is, that's going to be really, really powerful. Um, nearer-term applications and what's happening right now, Alzheimer's. There are so many people in their families suffering from Alzheimer's. It is a devastating disease that robs you of the person you were, robs your family of the person that they knew. And now there's opportunity to image early and see if Alzheimer's forming in the brain or other neurodegenerative diseases forming in the brain. Great way to get that early to track it and then also potentially treat it. So we do offer therapy if individuals qualify for this therapy. And the goal there is early, early, early. In my layman's terms, everyone should know on this podcast, I am not a doctor. Um, I'll use the yes, I'll use the cliche. I play one on TV here, right? Um, no enough to be dangerous. But I say it's like catching a falling knife. You need to get it right at the right, right time because this is really hard to say and really sad to say. But at a certain point, if you can't reverse the Alzheimer's, you don't want to slow it down because it's already progressed to a place that's going to limit quality of life. And so early and often for Alzheimer's, especially if someone is at high risk in their family as well. So I'm excited by the opportunities to, again, give time to patients. Um, that's where BAMF Health is going. That's where this field is going. And we'll also do that with all of the things that we surround treatment with, with software that supports efficient and effective scheduling, even, or production of radiopharmaceuticals. That's something that we haven't touched on, but we make our a lot of our own drugs in-house because every single drug has a different profile of a different half-life. It's like being in the ice business without having a freezer. And so, how much ice do you make? What shape do you make it? How do you get that ice to the person who needs it? You know, that's that's uh what we're trying to figure out. So incredible opportunities also in software and AI, all being thought through and put in place to benefit the patient.

Dr. Brandon Mancini 25:23

No, it's been remarkable to see the evolution just in this short period of time. And to your point, as far as just within the cancer space, there's somewhere near 100 clinical trials covering north of 10, 20 different disease types. And you see the investments from afar, global companies making sure their own infrastructure is set and planning for the future, because as I stated earlier, many are declaring theranostics and precision medicine with radiopharmaceuticals as this futuristic next pillar of oncology care, like for all of eternity, right? Um just precision medicine and early detection. I mean, early detection is absolutely it. American Cancer Society just released that now 70% of people diagnosed with cancer are living five or more years. That's up 20% since they start first started following this metric over the last 30 to 50 years. Absolutely. And so, I mean, fast forward just four years, we technically didn't exist for therapies. This theranostics for prostate cancer didn't exist. Like you're adding meaningful uh therapies to kind of the repertoire, the portfolio of options that patients have. Um, but they're better than they've ever been with less side effects, more quality time, and more quantity of time. But that's all happening simultaneously. And so at BAMF, with all the high-resolution imaging, all the advanced techniques, always forward thinking, we're gonna be a part of that journey for the world, which is super exciting.

Christine VanTimmeren 26:59

We talked about our why being for the patients, and it's like you said, that the quality and quantity of life. And we've heard the stories and they're incredible. The time people get, the family time they get, the vacations and Christmases they get. I mean, that's that's enough. Um so for you, Chad, maybe the final question to you is tell us about your why. What what brought you here and what what keeps you here and keeps you going?

Chad Bassett 27:26

I can't think of a more meaningful place to work and a problem to work on, right? And I've I've personally uh benefected. My my father uh was diagnosed with brain cancer and uh passed only three, four months after diagnosis. It was incredibly uh meaningful to me. He was able to be scanned at BAMF Health, um, and it was a kind of a in a in a horrible situation, but still kind of a proud father-son moment to be able to share something that I helped create in a way that was impacting his own health. Um, but so many family members, so many friends. I see what we're doing as uh having almost limitless possibility in being able to twofold theranostics , which is image and then treat, image and treat, image and treat, to figure out I fully believe the best image helps inform the best treatment program. And now with total body MRIs, seeing cancer earlier, seeing other diseases earlier, it like once again goes back to time. Time is the most precious thing we all have. Um maybe I'll make you laugh or shock you with a Taylor Swift lyric quote. Taylor Swift, all right, let's do it. She has a line that really resonates with me, and she says, Life is a song, it ends when it ends. And that's super simple. But when you you think about it, I can think about it in some funny terms. I'm like, wow, that person's song has been going on for a really long time. But so many, so many times, you know, you're you're there's a song that you love, and what do you do? You put it on repeat. Yeah, right. Because you want to hear it play longer. You want to hear it play longer. And so I I think that's really important is is if we can start to learn more, get things done earlier, have the ability to extend time, quality time, and get that song on that good song on repeat. That's that's the why.

Christine VanTimmeren 29:49

I love it. I love it. Thank you, Chad. We really appreciate you coming on, sharing the story about Banff, how it got started, the vision you and Anthony had back then and how it's come to life now. And you know, we've been going on what how many years now? 2022 to 2026. So we're going on four years. Yep. It is quite remarkable.

Chad Bassett 30:09

I am excited to watch all of the podcasts with so many more interesting guests. Yeah. And another cool thing about my work, my job, I'm learning every single day. So I can't wait to learn more from this podcast and you too and your guests.

Christine VanTimmeren 30:26

Thanks, Chad. Appreciate it. And thanks so much for joining us today. We hope we see you next time.