In this blog post, we’re excited to hear from Dr. Maria Ryan, the Chief Clinical Officer for Colgate-Palmolive Company, a gold sponsor of Forsyth dentech 2022. Dr. Ryan will also be participating in the CEO Panel at the event.
At Colgate, Dr. Ryan provides oversight and leadership to Dental and Dermal Clinical organizations, Knowledge Management, and Scientific Communications teams. She previously served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Oral Biology and Pathology at Stony Brook University where she was actively involved in teaching, clinical practice and research. She is the Past President of the American Association for Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research (AADOCR), has served on many academic and foundation boards, and is the recipient of many awards in the industry.
Interestingly, Dr. Ryan was involved with a startup company that came out of academia, CollaGenex Pharmaceuticals. She realizes how important having diverse partnerships throughout the oral health ecosystem were to the company’s success and sees such an opportunity to have all the key players together in the upcoming Forsyth Dentech conference.
Q&A with Dr. Maria Ryan
Can you tell us a little about Colgate?
Colgate-Palmolive is a caring, innovative growth company reimagining a healthier future for all people, their pets, and our planet. The company produces and distributes health and hygiene products, sold in more than 200 countries. As the worldwide leader in oral care, and with the Colgate brand found in more homes than any other, we have the opportunity to make a global impact and empower people’s healthier futures.
Why is Forsyth Dentech important?
There are not a lot of forums for dental startups to have visibility to dental companies and investors, where they can get capital, and move their work forward. I can remember back to my time working with a startup and many of the necessary collaborations that were needed for success happened through repeatedly reaching out to the various entities one by one. It would have been wonderful to have a one-stop shop where a startup could have received direction from multiple players at once.
Forsyth Dentech provides this type of opportunity for an open forum with people from academia, industry, government agencies, and NGOs. These groups can help guide and evaluate upcoming technologies and provide opportunities to allow for startups to gain funding and grow.
Why are you partnering with the Forsyth Institute on this event?
The Forsyth Institute has a long history of being a research hub for the latest innovations in Oral Care. They have a huge reach with global partnerships and work with the best of the best. Forsyth attracts renowned investigators who have developed technologies and are familiar with tech transfer. It is an outstanding oral health institute.
In addition to being an outstanding research facility, the Forsyth Institute was one of the pioneers in providing care to underserved populations in the Boston area – providing this necessary care for over 110 years.
Like Colgate, Forsyth has a commitment to both excellent science and the community. These shared values make them an excellent partner and collaborating together helps us fulfill our company purpose to reimagine a healthier future for all.
What do you feel are the biggest obstacles facing investment in dental development?
There is an underappreciation for oral health and how it contributes to overall health. We know that oral health literacy is low globally which leads to a lack of knowledge regarding the opportunities that exist for disease prevention, risk assessment, treatment and access to care, to help people who are suffering from oral disease.
What I have learned from the press is that when an article or TV interview is on oral health there is great interest. This is because everyone has teeth to start with and they are interested in how to keep them throughout life. Ensuring that people know that it’s about much more than the aesthetics, which is important to most people, by helping them to better understand the connection between oral health and overall health takes their interest to new heights.
It has been a passion of mine throughout my career to share this message and Colgate is taking great strides as the leader in oral care to educate people about these connections. Through our Know Your OQ campaign, we are improving oral health literacy and spreading the word that a healthy future starts with a healthy mouth. At KnowYourOQ.com, we provide free resources for dentists to share with their patients to get this message across, including an interactive quiz to discover your OQ score or Oral Health Quotient just as one may assess their IQ or EQ. If we prioritize education around the importance of oral health, we can help speed up dental development and empower people’s healthier futures.
How do you see oral health technology making a social impact moving forward?
Technology is incredibly important because there are so many underserved populations and technological advances can help reach them. Technology in the areas of prevention and detection of oral health problems will be critical since many oral diseases have no to few signs or symptoms. And these oral diseases have physical, emotional, social, and economic consequences.
For example, Colgate’s global research shows that poor oral health can have a significant impact on a child’s education with school days being missed, plus leads to adults needing to take days off from work. Technology is poised to help move the needle in preventing problems and detecting emerging issues early enough that people can seek help and live healthier lifestyles.
What do you think is the potential impact of Forsyth Dentech on the oral health technology ecosystem?
Better solutions to problems can emerge when you have input and guidance from all stakeholders – Forsyth Dentech serves as a forum for these conversations. By bringing together all the necessary players in this ecosystem and making new startups aware of all the opportunities before them, we can accelerate interest in oral health research and develop new technologies, which combined with education, will lead to healthier futures for all.
