Astounding HealthTech

Today, we’ll begin with a consideration of the promise for AI some experts see in healthcare and biopharma. Next, we’ll look at some of the obstacles – some technical, some organizational – and re-visit the eternal “data parasite” debate. Finally, we’ll conclude with a few suggestions for summer reading. The AI Opportunity: Elevating Healthcare for All Earlier this month, I... Read More

Biopharma relies on innovation to stay in business. Success depends on our collective ability to discover, develop, and deliver new products that cure or meaningfully mitigate disease over and over again. Patents allow for innovators to be rewarded, for a while. When patents expire, allowing us to purchase powerful generic medications like atorvastatin for pennies, manufacturers must come up with... Read More

The worlds of technology and entrepreneurship are captivated by recent advances in generative AI and large language models (LLMs).  The arrival of ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI (a startup partnered with Microsoft), caused Google to declare a “Code Red,” akin to “pulling the fire alarm,” the New York Times explained. The latest class of startups at Y Combinator are reportedly flocking... Read More

In 1935, Astounding Science — the premier science fiction magazine of the day, and perhaps ever — published “Proxima Centauri.” It was a short story envisioning an encounter between a voyaging earth spacecraft and a ship from a nearby star system. Written by Murray Leinster (William Fitzgerald Jenkins), the tale features the original use of the phrase “first contact” in... Read More

Biopharma, like the rest of the world, appears to be on the threshold of profound, technology-induced change. Incredible advances in artificial intelligence, manifested most recently in GPT-4, are here.  This technology, Ezra Klein explains in the New York Times, “changes everything.”  Bill Gates describes it as “the most important advance in technology since the graphical user interface,” and declares, “the... Read More

The success or failure of many technology platforms — including in particular health tech platforms — rests with a largely obscure role of outsized importance: the “solutions engineer.”  The role itself goes by many names. Back when I was at DNAnexus in the mid-2010s, this role was called “Solutions Scientist.” Others call it “Forward-Deployed Engineer” or “Embedded Analyst.” Whatever the... Read More

Most biopharma companies have started down the path of digital transformation – a fundamental overhaul of everything they do for the digital age. It’s not clear yet that anyone has arrived at the desired destination. Even so, there have been some early wins, generally related to operations, as the CEOs of both Novartis and Lilly have described. Arguably, the most... Read More

In 1845, dentist Horace Wells stood before Harvard medical students and faculty, eager to demonstrate the utility of nitrous oxide – laughing gas – as a general anesthetic.  Wells tried it out on a patient who needed  a tooth extraction. The dose, it turned out, wasn’t enough. The patient screamed in agony.  As described by Paul Offit in You Bet... Read More

For today: topics relevant to many drug developers (and others): The initial impact of digital The dilemma of data collection in early clinical studies The elusive search for “new normal” ways of working Initial impact of digital in biopharma The sexy promise of digital/data/AI in biopharma was that emerging digital technologies were going to solve our most important and vexing... Read More

Searching for a good listen or an interesting read? Here are my latest suggestions. Everything is awesome! Looking for something thoughtful and uplifting? A great place to start is this recent interview with tech VC Marc Andreessen, who discusses, persuasively, why he is still so optimistic about technology. Particularly useful: Andreessen’s ability to contextualize the evolution of technology, including the... Read More

Drug development remains an incredibly expensive endeavor. Much of the cost can be attributed to late-stage clinical trial failures.  The burden is borne first and foremost by clinical trial participants who aren’t helped by the experimental medicine. It also significantly impacts the companies sponsoring these studies. Everyone would like to improve the chances that a novel medicine that advances into... Read More

The implementation of emerging technologies requires front-line users to figure out what to do with the technology – how to adapt the technology to the problems users are actively trying to solve.    The most impactful use cases often are not immediately obvious – for example, Edison envisioned the phonograph would be predominantly used to record wills.    Moreover, effective adoption typically requires... Read More

Living in innovative domains like biomedical research requires an appreciation for the exceptional, the outlier. You might even argue that the goal of innovators – at least those who hope to see their ideas gain acceptance, or their inventions adopted – is to institutionalize the exceptional and make it routine.  In the Perez model of technology adoption, this is the... Read More

As biotech execs cope with challenging market conditions (the XBI biotech index is off about 50% from its high of February 2021), I found myself revising a now-classic 2011 essay by venture capitalist Ben Horowitz of Andreessen-Horowitz, arguing that extremely challenging times require very different management skills, and a different leadership style.  He describes and contrasts the approaches of what... Read More

Like no other event in our collective experience, the pandemic reminded us of the need for an integrative view of wellbeing beyond traditional measures of physical health. Focusing exclusively on cholesterol level and bone density, for example, would be hopelessly inadequate for the needs of today.  I continued to be haunted by Zak Kohane’s description of the many children’s hospitals... Read More

As we enter the holiday eating season – quickly followed by the New Year get-in-shape resolution season – let’s look at obesity challenge head-on.  Expert physicians who study obesity recognize the condition as a complex disease associated with profound health consequences. It also represents, for many health tech entrepreneurs, a high-value problem to be solved. Obesity has been ratcheting upward... Read More

Humility may not be the first word you associate with “genetics,” “precision medicine,” and “Harvard,” but it was unquestionably the theme of the day at a fascinating panel this week convened by the Harvard Data Science Initiative. The discussion (video here), was remarkably grounded. It reflected hard-earned learnings from experts who have tried to implement data-driven, “precision” health solutions outside the... Read More

“It’s been a busy few weeks for product announcements in the world of fitness,” industry observer Anthony Vennare recently commented, citing the latest offerings from the Peloton, Mirror, Tempo, and other digital fitness platforms. On the one hand, these developments are encouraging, offering customers pursuing fitness — and who are willing and able to afford the steep premiums — a... Read More