Building the Future of Theranostics in Detroit

Welcome to the BAMF Health Podcast, where we explore the future of theranostics, precision medicine, and personalized healthcare.

In this episode, Christine VanTimmeren is joined by BAMF Health Founder & CEO Anthony Chang and Dr. Adnan Munkarah, President of Clinical Enterprise and Chief Physician Executive at Henry Ford Health, to discuss a major milestone: the groundbreaking of a new comprehensive theranostics center in downtown Detroit.

This conversation dives into the strategic partnership between BAMF Health and Henry Ford Health, why Detroit was selected as BAMF’s second location, and how this new center will expand access to cutting-edge theranostics care across Michigan, the Midwest, and beyond.

We explore the infrastructure and workforce challenges facing theranostics, the importance of vertical integration in radiopharmaceuticals, and how this collaboration will help train the next generation of clinicians, scientists, and healthcare professionals. Most importantly, we discuss what this means for patients—bringing earlier detection, more personalized treatment, and new hope to those who need it most.

This episode highlights how partnerships like this are not just building facilities—but building the future of medicine.

00:00 Introduction & Groundbreaking Announcement
 00:40 Why Detroit Was Chosen for BAMF’s Expansion
 02:08 Henry Ford Health’s Commitment to Detroit
 03:45 Why Henry Ford Is the Right Partner
 05:26 Why Henry Ford Chose BAMF
 09:35 Barriers to Expanding Theranostics
 10:05 Infrastructure Challenges 
 12:51 Access Challenges & Vertical Integration
 14:44 Detroit as a Healthcare Innovation Hub
 16:22 Michigan as a Leader in Precision Medicine
 18:08 Transforming the Site & Community Impact
 19:41 Workforce & Training the Next Generation
 20:34 Building the Future Healthcare Workforce
 22:17 What This Means for Patients
 24:01 The Future of Early Detection & Innovation
 25:28 Why Michigan Is Uniquely Positioned
 26:46 The Future of Healthcare in Detroit
 27:24 Final Reflections & Vision

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Christine VanTimmeren

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Transcript

Christine VanTimmeren 0:05

Hello and welcome to the BAMF Health Podcast. I'm Christine Van Timmeren, Dr. Mancini, not with me today. He is stepping aside, and that's because we have two very special guests. So in today's episode, we're going to talk about a transformative partnership for BAMF Health. So last year, if you heard, you may not have, but it was a pretty big deal. Last year we announced that we are partnering with Henry Ford Health to build a comprehensive Theranostics Center in downtown Detroit. And in fact, today is the groundbreaking for that site. So it's a super exciting day for us, super exciting for Henry Ford Health. So make sure you stay close to BAMF Health social media, Henry Ford social media to check out all the excitement surrounding groundbreaking. This site will be BAMF Health's second location. And so today we're going to talk about why Detroit was selected as our next location, why Henry Ford Health was the absolute perfect partner for this project. And then we'll talk about all that's going to happen with that building and that structure, how it's going to expand access to Theranostics, not only across the state of Michigan, across the Midwest, but really across the globe. So I want to introduce you to our two guests. Our first guest here with me now is BAMF Health founder and CEO Anthony Chang. And then joining us virtually is Henry Ford Health, president of Clinical Enterprise and Chief Physician Executive, Dr. Adnan Munkarah. Dr. Chang, Dr. Munkarah, thank you both of you for joining us today. We have kind of a cool setup here. Dr. Chang is with me in studio. And then we've got Dr. Munkarah on this magical monitor in front of us. So for those of you who are watching, you can see that if you're listening by audio, just know we've got a pretty cool setup here. Thank you, both of you, for joining. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 2:07

Thank you. So it's been a great pleasure.

Christine VanTimmeren 2:10

So I want to start with you, Anthony, to talk about BAMF's expansion and the selection of Detroit as our next location. So tell me how Detroit became that next location for BAMF, that second location for BAMF.

Speaker 1 2:28

It's actually a no-brainer. I mean, we're from Michigan, and our mission is trying to make this technology accessible, affordable as soon as possible to every single patient who need it. And Detroit is definitely a major city, the largest city in the state of Michigan. And there's a lot of not only a large patient population who will need this technology, but also great partners like Henry Ford, allowing us to partner to advance the medicine together faster with a similar mindset. So to choose to pick Detroit to extend our sites as our first sites outside Grand Rapids. This is a literal no brainer. On top of that, location is actually also very important, too. Um, we all know like last year BAMF treat patients from 24 states. A lot of patients from out of states, they don't have access to this technology. They flew all the way into Grand Rapids to do that. Detroit will be a way easier location for the patient coming in to looking for the help and also greater educational like uh environment, institutions, and also the business environment for innovations. And with all of that, make Detroit a almost perfect location for our second site.

Christine VanTimmeren 3:45

Dr. Munkarah, I would guess you would agree with that. You're in Detroit with Henry Ford Health. So tell me about the potential for Detroit, what this means for that community, um, and sort of the need within Detroit for expanded access to these services.

Speaker 4:01

So uh as many know, Detroit has been the home for Henry Ford Health for over 110 years. In fact, Henry Ford Hospital opened its doors for its first patients in 1915. And at a time where many people have left the city, we have doubled down on our commitment to the city. We grew. We now deliver care throughout the state and beyond the state. We already have 13 acute care uh hospitals uh in the system, but we never left Detroit. And in fact, in the past two years, we announced a huge investment in the city of Detroit, a huge investment in the community, over $3 billion to build a new health tower, to build a research center. The new hospital tower has over 377 beds, state-of-the-art equipment to deliver the best care to our patients. And part of that is always to continue to expand and provide better care, to provide innovative care. And it became very natural as we are looking at other ways to provide that best care is expand our precision medicine programs. Theranostics is part of that bigger puzzle. And this is what kind of drove us to kind of think how we can build on what we have done, as well as partner with teams as well as institutions that have the same values and cultures that we have.

Christine VanTimmeren 5:25

So, Anthony, you talked about a no-brainer to go to Detroit. It seems like it's sort of a no-brainer to partner with an institution like Henry Ford Health that has a century plus of uh supporting patients and in the community in Detroit. So talk to us about the choice to bring Henry Ford Health into this project and why they're such a fantastic partner.

Speaker 1 5:48

This is literally not a no-brainer. And our mission is actually trying to help patients. Uh, the reason we exist as a healthcare and bring the most advanced technology is trying to help the patients and who need help. And I think that that's number one, a very, very high level, like the mission aligned with each other. But on top of that, is bringing this new technology, bring bringing the most advanced technology, take a special mindset. I mean, being a leader is very different uh from being the first follower. And then Henry Ford with has those kinds of culture and uh and also with a lot of great uh specialties in wide variety of disciplines, and which make Henry Ford is a very, very good partner for us. We keep talking about the theranostics is the gate, it's a key component and puzzles for precision medicine, but it is not precision medicine itself. So, in order to actually make it available and combine with all the other technology to offer the best care to the patients, that's why we needed the right partner to move forward. On top of that, theranostics is not just for cancer, it's also for Alzheimer's Alzheimer's disease like neurological disease, cardiological disease, can start moving into uh uh uh like a chronic pain, maybe uh sports medicine. To explore this kind of field, we don't have those kind of expertise, but Henry Ford does. And with those kind of resources, with the mindset and with the capability, which make the us, Henry Ford, a great partner to work with, work with each other. And then the third thing, which is also the most important things, Henry Ford has a great mindset to reach out to the community, to really serve the community members and tackle the health disparity things. This is also something we're very, very close to our heart. So this is another topic, make us make us great partners to work with each other, um, uh advance the theranostics.

Christine VanTimmeren 7:43

So Henry Ford Health sort of has that multidisciplinary across all aspects of healthcare expertise for decades and decades. BAMF has the expertise in theranostics as the first, you know, vertically integrated comprehensive theranostics center. So, Dr. Munkarah, when Henry Ford Health was trying to think about how do we expand theranostics in the Detroit area and within our system, what drew you to BAMF?

Speaker 8:14

Innovation and research uh are part of our DNA at Henry Ford Health. We are always looking at innovative ways to deliver the best care. Not only innovative ways, but how do we provide also high value care to our community? How do we provide the right care, right time, in the right setting? We have been working very diligently in the past few years to expand our precision health programs. How do we make sure that we are providing the right medicine to the right patient? How do we make sure that we are doing the right diagnostic, the right testing? And definitely theranostics has been growing to be a significant component of that precision health. It is not all precision health, but it's a significant component. So as we started to look at potential partners, we really wanted to identify a partner who has the same mentality, mentality of innovation and research, mentality of providing access to our community, providing high value care to our community. And honestly, the first time we met the BAMF team, it became very clear that it's the this is the natural marriage. This is that partnership is very natural because we think alike, we have the same values and driven by the same goals.

Speaker 1 9:24

I will agree. I mean, because that's the feeling for across our team. When we first met with a handful team, that's actually the feedback from our team. And then we just have strong feelings about it.

Christine VanTimmeren 9:34

That's awesome. So we talked a little bit about in our last episode sort of the barriers to expanding theranostics, making it more widely available and available across more conditions, and clinical trials are a big part of that. Uh, Anthony, I'll start with you. Explain some of those barriers to expanding theranostics. We're on the precipice of bringing this across the country right now, but what have been some of the obstacles?

Speaker 1 10:05

I will I would talk about these topics from two main categories. One is actually infrastructures, and the other one is actually the talents. So the infrastructure right now for theranostics is actually unique, brand new industries. Yes, we can practice a small amount of this in small scale in current infrastructures, but the need is so big, and we need to figure out and we need to have new new infrastructures allowing us to bring this to the patients in a more efficient way in a larger scale. This is theranostics of using radio pharmaceuticals. Number one, we need to figure out how to manufacture a wide variety of radio pharmaceuticals every single day at a commercial scale, at an affordable price, and make available to the patients. And radio pharmaceuticals are not something like conventional drugs you can manufacture in India, Europe, and ship it over the world. It decays. And the majority of drugs has less than two hours of a half life, meaning every two hours we lost half of that. So we have to be able to manufacture those kind of drugs every single day at a strategic location in order to serve our patients. So first we need to solve the manufacturing problems. Number two, we need to figure out how are we going to be able to scan large amount of patients, treat large amount amount of patients, maintain the good quality of care, but also keep our staff safe, you know, and uh also maintain the good quality of care they can offer to the patients. So that's the second part we need to offer. And so that's why we build out and the brand new infrastructures allowing us to achieve this kind of goal. But on top of that, once we have these infrastructures, we can serve large amount of patients. Since this is a new field, we still we just don't have the existing program to train this new generation of doctors or talents. Yeah, it's not just doctors, but nurses, physicists, chemistry, pharmacists, technologists. We need to have a brand new program and partners in order to bring the talent to the clinic so we can serve more patients. So with these two things, with our mindset, with infrastructures, so and this will allow us to advance science, advanced medicine more clinically. Not only do we have drugs, we know how to use the drugs, we know how to use drugs efficiently in the right timing at the right dose to specific patients. There's a lot a lot of knowledge need to be learned, and therefore we need clinical trial, but without this infrastructure, with this kind of talent, and we just cannot do this kind of clinical trial efficiently. Therefore, that's what BAMF is targeting and uh to bring it to the to the society, to the to the medical field, but also it's why we're eager to uh partner with Henry Ford and on both like a research clinical trial and also talent part.

Christine VanTimmeren 12:50

Dr. Munkarah, are there unique challenges over on the east side of the state when it comes to improving access, accessibility to theranostics ?

Speaker 13:04

Absolutely. And I think what Anthony has mentioned is what resonated with us is that vertical integration that BAMF has been developing. And what I mean by that, you think about it, what you need, you need capabilities and you need facilities. The capabilities, you need to have the drugs and you have access to these drugs in a timely fashion because they decay, as Anthony has mentioned. You are going to need the tools, sometimes the testing tools, the type of CAT scan, the type of other the uh x-ray tools, I would call it, that are state-of-the-art. So you need to have connectivity to the companies that are producing this. You need to have the experts. You need to have the experts on the pharmacy side, you need to have the experts on the medical side, the physicians, the radiologists, the cancer therapists, the neurologists that are needed in that. And then you need the facility. You need to have a building where you are housing all of these next to each other. So this is why when we are talking about BAMF, we were very excited and intrigued and excited about the idea because bringing everything under one roof is extremely important. And this is why when we started talking to Anthony and his team, what we decided to do is we started, we made the decision to move the radio pharmaceuticals treatment that we were doing in our cancer center to move it into the new facility so that we have that proximity, so that patients who are uh seeking our care, whether they are from our community, or anywhere else around the nation, have a one-stop can come in, they can get the test, they can get the treatment, they can get the evaluation, and they are seen by a multidisciplinary team, and the drugs are available there. This is what's exciting about this joint venture.

unknown 14:43

Yeah.

Christine VanTimmeren 14:44

Dr. Munkarah, when you think about what a center like this will mean to Detroit and its metro area in terms of innovation and positioning the city and the area as a medical destination. Talk to me more about that potential once the center opens.

Speaker 15:06

So I cannot be more excited about that. And the reason is uh I've been in Detroit for over 35 years now. And when I came here to the city, uh the city unfortunately was not in a good place. The city, the largest city in Michigan, has gone through a significant rebirth. Really, it's a historic comeback. And we are very excited to see where Detroit is at the present time. And we always believed that a large city like Detroit deserves a world-class healthcare system. Health system like ours, where we are driving the best clinical care. And at the same time, we are driving innovation, we are driving research, we are bringing those capabilities to our people in the community, in the Metro Detroit area and Michigan and beyond. And our our really what we are excited about is that we are able to do that in the field of theranostics, that by bringing that innovation and research that BAMF has started and partnering with our teams, with our clinicians, partnering with our pharmacists, partnering with our community, we are going to be able to provide those capabilities in the city of Detroit for the people of Michigan, the Midwest, and the nation.

Christine VanTimmeren 16:21

That's right. Anything to add about sort of our vision when we think about positioning not only Detroit, but really the state of Michigan as this innovative healthcare hub and hub for precision medicine, truthfully.

Speaker 1 16:34

Yeah, I do believe like Michigan is standing in a very, very good position. I mean, to be the leader in the theranostics field when we have these two sites in both on the east and west side of the uh states. But on top of that, we have a lot of great capability on other technology, like a genomic and proteomic cell therapy and proton therapy, et cetera, et cetera. Like uh, I mean, and with a mindset like Henry Ford, it's a literally a step we put us in a great position to really lead the precision medicine. I always talk about right now we have a lot of technology. And it's not about do you have the technology? It's also important how to use this technology, how to use this technology in the right way in the right time, so we can offer the best care to the patient, offer the best outcome. And then, so I mean, with this kind of mindset, with this kind of a resource facility we have, and we can make the whole research advanced medicine way more efficiently, and then we can serve way more patients to the state of Michigan and become a leader to show people not only how we should how should we practice this type of medicine, but uh like a systematic wise, economical wise, how we should practice this in order to offer the best care, health care to everybody. One thing about Detroit I really want to mention is like Detroit is like with those kind of spirits, like the roll the sleeve build things up. In this kind of brand new field, we need this kind of mindset and spirit. And we're so that's another reason why we're so excited to build these sites. I mean our sites is actually built on previous jail sites. Yeah. We turn it into.. it was a junvenile detention center.

Christine VanTimmeren 18:08

It is. Yeah. Take what was potentially a story that had some difficult parts to it and make it something that's going to tran not only transform the area, but then make it a destination, make it a place people want to go, make it a place of hope, not a place of depression. And, you know, it was a juvenile detention home. It was a difficult place. Um, and so we're gonna sort of transform that. Um, one thing you both talked about and one of the challenges we discussed was the talent. So Theranostics is this new emerging medical practice. There, frankly, is just not a lot of people who know how to practice this type of medicine. There's certainly a lot of folks in the oncology space who have the capability and the capacity and the knowledge, but there just isn't a lot of training specifically in this field. So, what are we doing or what needs to be done to make sure that we are educating those next generations and making programs available so this field can be supported?

Speaker 1 19:40

Yeah, so from BAMF side, I mean, we're looking for academic partners to train wide variety of talents. Like on west side, we're working with the Ferris State University, and they were partnered with in the East Side with Henry Ford too to train uh radio pharmacists and uh nuclear medicine technologists, which are in like a high demand right now for this brand new field. And but but also like with specific to Henry Ford, we're looking forward to start some maybe fellowship program or special certification for the physicians, for nurses, for physicists. And then so we can actually systematically train high-quality uh medical professionals. Not only can they serve our patients on our sites, but uh in the future they can actually uh go across the nation and to serve more patients around there.

Christine VanTimmeren 20:30

Dr. Munkarah, anything to add there?

Speaker 20:34

First, I would say that uh we strongly believe that part of our mission is to prepare the workforce of the future in healthcare. This is why we have in in at Henry Ford Health, we have one of the biggest five graduate medical education programs in medicine. We have one of the largest residency and fellowship uh training programs in the nation. But we also train students. We are out there in the high school to expose students to what that means to be in healthcare. And healthcare does not mean specifically be a physician or a nurse. Healthcare can be a pharmacist, can be a physicist, can be somebody who is supporting uh the team that's providing care. And this is why we are excited about this possibility. The theranostics represents the future of precision health or part of the future of precision health. So imagine going into the high school, into the into these classes with young people and getting them excited about how the future looks like. I get excited when I look at it, and I've been in the field of medicine for almost 40 years, and I've been in the field of cancer for about 30 years, that over 30 years, 35 years. So when I looked at it, I get very excited. So we can take it to those future generations, the generation who is going to be involved in healthcare, the generation who will be treating us in the future and expose them to capabilities. As I said, there does not need to be a physician or a nurse. It can be a physicist, it can be a pharmacist, it can be a chemist, all kinds of opportunities. That are going to be provided to our community. And this honestly, we believe that part of our mission is to improve the health of our community, but also improve the economic health of the community. So if you are able to train, educate, and employ the future workforce, this is extremely exciting.

Christine VanTimmeren 22:16

100%. And just like we're we're excited about the medicine, we're excited about the site. We're excited about the potential impact on the state of Michigan. We're excited about the talent that will be built up. I think the truly the most exciting part is the impact on the people, the impact on the patients, especially those, again, on the east side who haven't had as much access to this. So, Dr. Munkarah, I'll start with you. Talk to me about what this means to the people and the patients and your patient population to have just more access to this medicine. We're all so excited about.

Speaker 22:58

So we are committed to deliver the future of health and transform the future of health for our community. And what we mean by that is we want in Detroit and in the Metro Detroit area to build our capabilities so that people do not need to go anywhere else of Michigan to seek care. And we really believe that we are doing that through multiple partnerships. But BAMF is one of these essential partnerships to drive that. We don't, people who have cancer, or as Anthony has mentioned, might have Alzheimer disease, who might have certain cardiovascular disease. We are going to be capable to have the capability to provide them first the best diagnostic and treatment tools that are available, but also provide for them the ability to be enrolling in clinical trials to look at the future of healthcare, the future of diagnostic, the future of treatment. And this is what our commitment is to our community, that we are going to be the destination for care for the future.

Christine VanTimmeren 23:55

Anthony, what would you add about what you'd like the communities in Detroit to know about what's coming their way?

Speaker 1 24:01

Oh, I'm I'm 100% agree with what Dr. just said, just mentioned. I mean, but like more specifically, this is actually allowed us to take a leap over the future of medicine. Not only offer the current technology and knowledge to what a patient needs right now. There's a great opportunity. We using this technology to have access to this technology, we can start like catching this kind of disease way earlier than what we can do right now. We will have a chance to be able to catch Alzheimer's disease before the symptoms coming out, so we can intervene earlier, and we can catch the cancer in the early phase when the combined with other technologies, so we can intervene earlier, so we can uh expect to offer patients better outcome. And then so with a lot of these kind of exciting things over here, is actually we offer a resource and a facility, an environment for innovation to happen. The high school kids or with the like a college student or even like a medical medical student, they have this kind of resource, they have this kind of environment, and they can start to brainstorming what future can look like. When these things are available to me, how can I use these kind of things to further tackle rare diseases or tackle disease in very different ways so we can offer a better outcome to the patients and or catch disease earlier? So I'm extremely excited about what a future can be. And then um with this kind of partnership with this kind of facility, um, this is just the start.

Christine VanTimmeren 25:28

I mean, it it truly is amazing because this will only exist in Michigan. Right now, BAMF, our main location, is in Grand Rapids. This next location will be in Detroit. So the people of Michigan are going to have access that no one else in the world has. And so every time there's a new advancement in Theranostics, every time another disease can be treated or visualized using Theranostics, it's all going to start in Michigan. And so it's super important for the communities across the state and in Detroit to understand that you are going to have access to the most advanced and up-and-coming and new things in this field of medicine. And nowhere else in the country is going to have it at the level that we do. So the fact that groundbreaking is today and this project is starting and it's kicking off is it's important for people to know you're going to have access unlike any other.

Speaker 26:46

We strongly believe that this is a significant building block toward the future of health, making a difference in the health of our community. And we are very excited about the potential of where this is going to take us together as partners.

Christine VanTimmeren 27:01

Anthony, anything else you would add?

Speaker 1 27:03

Yeah, I deeply believe the future will not belong to the people who stand by it. I believe the future will belong to people who build it. And I think this is literally what we're building the future together and to advance and lead the frontier of the medicine. And it is extremely exciting.

Christine VanTimmeren 27:24

I mean, on a personal level, how does it feel for you to know that this is what you dreamed of and this is what you started 10 years ago and it's coming to life? How does that feel?

Speaker 1 27:34

It feels very I feel very extremely grateful and humbled. I mean, be able to share this vision and also work with a group of outstanding people with different kinds of expertise I don't have in make these things happen, make it reach out to more patients and keep advancing, tackling devastating diseases. It's more than I can dream of. So I'm extremely grateful in the and humble of this of this kind of uh groundbreaking today. Yeah. Yeah.

Christine VanTimmeren 28:02

Dr. Munkarah, we really appreciate you joining us. We're so grateful for your partnership. Obviously, we couldn't be more excited about what's to come. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your thoughts.

Speaker 28:13

Thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you.

Christine VanTimmeren 28:16

Anthony, thank you for joining us.

Speaker 1 28:18

It's a pleasure. Yeah.

Christine VanTimmeren 28:19

We hope that you all are excited as much as we are. If you couldn't tell, we're a little excited. Uh can't wait to share more about this project as it develops. And we'll, of course, keep you updated here on the podcast and all across BAMF Health's various communication channels. So thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time.