GRS Blog

Convergent Medical Technologies - Opportunities and Challenges

01/11/2013

This was a brilliant event held on Tuesday 21st May 2013 at the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst.  As an open innovation campus, they believe that the convergence of multiple innovative technologies is one of the future's most important healthcare trends.  Working across a range of areas is expected to create many cutting-edge new products and this event was to discuss how to make this a reality.  The day was made up of panel discussions and parallel workshops with opportunities and challenges discussed with the audience.  These are listed below.

Opportunities:

• Stratified medicine
• Affordability of genetic understanding
• Molecular drugs for stratified medicine
• New approaches to drug therapy
• Precision medicine
• Translational medicine
• Gene Therapy
• Early cancer detection
• Biomarkers
• "Adaptive licensing would revolutionise things in the UK"
• "Alternative licensing to bring innovation to the market sooner"

Challenges:

• Innovation becoming increasingly interdisciplinary and therefore, difficult to manage
• Culture
• Procurement in the NHS
• IT and Diagnostics: clinical integration
• Systems to allow researchers to exchange more readily
• Regulators are slow to adapt to new technologies: need industry, academia and regulators to work together
• Need partners and funding and must be more about impact rather than financial gain
• Shortage of VC money
• Investors want results sooner than is possible, they must be patient!
• NHS has a lax attitude to IP
• "NICE and diagnostics, are a 'dog's breakfast'"!
• Working co-operatively, not 'winner takes all'
• "Big prizes now will be around delivery of patient care" requiring a change in healthcare systems
• "Society wants reward with no risk"
• Double-blinded trials shouldn't be so extreme

As is often the way there seem to be more challenges than opportunities!  The event did meet its objective, however, in that there was plenty of discussion and ideas.  There was also a Call to Action.  It was made very clear that it's well and good to talk but action needs to take place too.  So watch this space!

So what do you think?  Do you agree with the opportunities and challenges listed above?  Can you contribute to one, either or both of these lists?  Is there anything you can do about it?

Lastly, I'd like to share a statement made by one of the attendees and which was 'music to my ears':

"Address your regulatory strategy earlier and this will increase your chances of success"

Author: Greer Deal, Director of Global Regulatory Services