The Edge – NetV@lue 2.0, July 14, 2008
A 2020 vision for
healthcare
By Cindy Yeap
Year 2020 is just a dozen years from now, biotech
visionary Steven Burrill reminded those present at
the biotechnology world’s annual conference (BIO
2008) in San Diego recently.
Yes, nearly two decades have passed since Wawasan
2020 (Vision 2020) was first spoken of in 1991.
Then, it was a 30-year vision for Malaysia to be a
developed nation, complete with a patriotic jingle
aired on the free – to – air radio and television
channels.
But Burrill, one of the industry’s leading experts,
was speaking of his own vision of the biotech world
when presenting his 22nd annual report on the
industry, titled Biotech 2008 – Life Sciences: A
20/20 Vision to 2020. His presentation was meant to
be both an invitation and reminder for player to
check if they are doing will be relevant 12 years
from today, apart from sharing his predictions for
the industry.
Instant diagnosis
“If we were to stand back today and ask where the
healthcare world is going to be in 2020, I want to
remind you that that’s just a dozen years from now.
Most of you who are starting companies today, or
developing products now, would only get those
products to the market about a dozen years from now.
“So it’s helpful and important to stand back and
look for a minute, not only on where we are but more
importantly, where we’re going, and what that
(healthcare) world is going to look like when those
products get into the market because if we don’t
understand that, we’re going to make dramatic
mistake,” Burrill told those present at the “State –
of – the – Industry” super session at BIO 2008.
With 40 years’ experience in the industry, he
predicts that by year 2020, the “Wal Marts” of the
world will be the primary place for consumers to
seek medication or health supplements. This, he
says, is because patients would be carrying their
genome and health records on a smart card or
portable devices like cell phones or BlackBerries,
and our friendly local “pharmacists”, with the aid
of smart gadgets, would be able to instantly
diagnose illnesses and issue a prescription that
best suits the patient based on his or her genome,
basically one’s gene build – up or traits.
“It will be an ecosystem based on convergence where
everyone would be linked electronically… it will be
a very, very different healthcare system we have all
lived (with) in the past 2,000 years… For primary
care, the Wal Marts are getting closer and closer to
the patients around the world while the more
specialised care will left to secondary
institutions,” says Burrill, chief executive of
Burrill & Company, a San Fransisco-based global
leader in life sciences with activities in venture
capital, private equity, merchant banking and media.
In 2020, he also foresees a world where illnesses
can be instantly diagnosed using gadgets like
ingestible nano devices, which can be swallowed like
today’s vitamin pills. He also pictures a world
where people can grow or buy tissues, limbs and
organs “off the shelf” instead of turning to the
black market. He foresees the cost of decoding a
person’s genome to fall from over US$50,000 to some
US$100 (about RM162, 000 to RM325) by year 2020, a
factor which would open up a myriad of possibilities
for the current and new players in the healthcare
industry.
Burrill is convinced that in a little as 10 years,
patients will be willing to see someone other than a
physician or doctor to treat their illness.
“Doctors are trusted because of the knowledge they
have… When this little gizmo has more data than
doctor has, the nature of the medical profession is
bound to change… I’m not going to be off by very
much, may be a year or two, but it’s going to be
sooner rather than later, say 10 years in 2018,”
Burrill predicts.
Technology for 2020 exists today
He also reckons that Americans and others around the
world would welcome new and cheaper ways to stay
healthy, such as simple advice on a diet change, as
well new methods to assess one’s health or “stated
of wellness” when they are asked to pay a larger
portion of healthcare cost.
There’s already clear evidence today that systems
biology is moving healthcare to a more personalised
medicine world, one that “inevitably would lead us
down path to predictability and then on to
prevention”, he notes.
“When we reach the year 2020, we will look back and
notes that 2007 was the year that personalised
medicine started to play a role in every aspect of
the healthcare continuum,” he adds.
The technology for 2020, says Burrill, exists today.
What’s left is the integration into a holistic
system at prices low enough to courage and attain
mass adoption. And the price of healthcare is bound
to come down as governments and healthcare companies
around the world are working to ensure that.
Governments, he says, will do so on the realisation
that the cost of healthcare at current prices would
eventually bankrupt them, especially as health
supplements and better lifestyles help people live
longer.
Large pharmaceutical companies in the US, faced with
the issue of the cheaper generic drugs being
produced in countries like China, will also have
little choice but to adapt to change in the
industry. This fact has helped cause investors to
short large pharmaceutical stocks on Wall Street and
go long on the better biotech companies, Burrills
says. “Wall Street is beginning to show value for
diagnostics although they don’t understand it,” he
says.
Be a global entity from day one
To be successful, biotech companies everywhere need
to know that they are a “global entity from day one”
and therefore need to work towards a “virtually
integrated” model. Burrill foresees more and more
R&D activities being outsourced to Asia, to
countries like China and India, even to Malaysia.
So herein lies the multi-billion dollar question:
Are Malaysia’s biotech efforts in line with what
Burrill say the healthcare world is moving toward?
Malaysia – like many others countries including
China, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore, the United
Arab Emirates, Australia and Thailand – is trying to
position itself to be a significant biotech player.
The US, Burrill says, will still be significant
player, but will lose its current dominance as other
countries succeed in moving ahead.
Some small successes have been made in Malaysia thus
far, with spokesmen from companies like US-Based
Trusgen LLC, Actis Biologics Inc and India’s Vivo
Bio Tech Ltd telling Malaysia journalists in San
Diego hoe pleased they are with the level of service
and cooperation the Malaysian government and
Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation Bhd (BiotechCorp)
have give them.
BiotechCorp’s chief executive Datuk Iskandar Mizal
Mahmood admits a lot more still needs to be done to
achieve the initiatives under the Biotechnology
Masterplan, which is divided into three five-year
phase from 2005 through year 2020. But from the
feedback received in the course of steering
BiotechCorp since its inception in May 2005,
Iskandar is convinced the country is on the right
track. “The current phase of capacity building has
progressed well, which is very important as we move
into the commercialization phase (in 2011),” he
says.
“We have, from 2005, disseminated information about
Malaysia and what Malaysia can do. Subsequent to
that, it is about business matching and we have seen
some positive trends. Instead of just us targeting
certain companies, companies are coming to us.
Trusgen is one of these companies. We do not tell
the world we are good in everything, only certain
areas and based on that, they have come to us. We
hope to be seeing more strategic collaborations for
Malaysia to move up the value chain and industry
ladder,” he says.
A lot of work is currently being put in to ensure
that good research carried out at local
universities, for instance, do not go to waste.
Iskandar hopes that scientists who come up with
ground – breaking inventions, can think more like
businessmen when it comes to commercializing
products. Here’s an area BiotechCorp would be more
than happy to help with. Burrill says solutions for
diabetes, obesity and treating memory loss (Alzaheimer’s)
will be among the big money makers come 2020.
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