Globally, healthcare systems are overwhelmed, with healthcare professionals (HCPs) overworked and patients often receiving inadequate care. This strain demands a transformation not only in technologies and healthcare processes but also in the fundamental understanding of disease. The healthcare sector and adjacent fields like biotech and pharma are on the brink of a shift driven by technological advancements that usher in a new era of virtualization and technologization.
A decade into the “AI revolution” in biotech, massive investments totaling upwards of $50 billion haven’t yet resolved uncertainty about the technology’s true impact on the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. While a new wave of tech-driven biotech leaders like Demis Hassabis and Daphne Koller have set their eyes on reshaping the industry, innovation brings volatility and mindset clashes between tech-centered and science-focused views. Future biotech leaders must bridge tech and industry realities, focus on smart AI use cases and data strategy, and center their approach around AI literacy while balancing human and machine skills.
Megatrends, long-term, ubiquitous, and impactful development can help us towards a systemic understanding and an action plan. The pharma and biotech industries in particular deal with human health at its core and are at once highly dependent on innovation and highly regulated – both in the sake of saving human lives. A new set of technologies is now moving the borders in biotechnology:
Prediction of future health states based on genes and other biomarkers
Cures for genetic diseases by gene editing technologies
Replacement or enhancement of human sensory, motor, or cognitive function by neuroprosthetics and brain-machine interfaces
After the Industrial and the Digital revolution, the Bio Revolution, promises an age beyond Darwinian Evolution, in which human technologies overcome biological principles in a quest for a fully human-centric planet.
In the science tales blog, Louise von Stechow explores the trends of the BioRevolution - from Artificial Intelligence for pharma and biotech, new therapies for rare diseases, psychedelics in the treatment of mental health.