During this session we talked about how BioBusiness has changed the world that we live in today. As defined by prof, BioBusiness is the commercial application of the activities of life and life sciences. During the session, we focused on how BioBusiness have revolutionised the healthcare and Biomedical industry.
We were introduced to the concept of future healthcare systems with the viewing of a video. The video showed how a patient could interact with her doctor via the TV, and how the doctor can monitor the patient's hormone levels from the comfort of his clinic via a technological device. The patient could also purchased medicine that has been prescribed to her off the shelf, with no further need to see any additonal pharmacist. As prof mentioned, one of the greatest issues about healthcare is the long waiting time faced by patients. With the introduction of these innovations, we can clearly say that the waiting time would be cut down and this would lead to greater productivity in our healthcare industry. The issue now lies with integrating whatever technology is already out there and overcoming the regulations, if any that might hamper the innovation process.
One key takeaway from this lesson would be the startling fact that 5% of the world's population in USA are using 50% of the world's healthcare. USA's healthcare system creates what we call a moral hazard- when people use more than what they really need. This is due to the fact that Americans who are insured pays large amounts of health insurance, thus when they fall sick, it is human nature to maximise their benefit and use as much as they can.
With non communicable diseases on the rise in society today, healthcare systems are increasingly becoming inefficient and thus, there is a need to innovate to ensure sustainability.
-One practice would be the increasing use of wellness and disease management. This helps to decrease the number of people who are falling sick and thus there is less pressure on the world's healthcare systems.
-The use of nutraceuticals, essentially meaning food with benefits would help to enhance our total well being. There is an increasing awareness in society today on eating the right foods. Berries are full of antioxidants while carrots have beta carotene. The consumption of dietary supplements are also on the rise as one small pill can come packed with lots of vitamins and minerals, enough to meet our daily requirements.
-Another future innovation would involve what was describe in the video earlier in this post. With tele-medicine and automatic dispensaries, the waiting time in the healthcare system today would be greatly reduced. Patients can get diagnosis and prescriptions from the comfort of their home and the medicine can be dispensed to them without the need for another third party like a pharmacist or cashier!
Biobusiness has also been widely used in the Biomedical science industry. Insulin can be produced outside our body synthetically and can be injected into our system if our bodies fail to produce enough insulin.
Many drug companies invest heavily in R&D to come out with new drugs to treat diseases. Once a successful drug has been produced, it can earn a patent and the drug company is able to reap the profits buy selling it en masse to society. However, this is a risky business, I learnt that less than 5% of the drugs researched on would actually succeed and earn a patent. Our discussion in class then led to the debate about whether pharmaceutical companies should sell drugs cheaply as developing countries are in need of the drugs as well. A win-win situation would entail licencing countries to produce the drugs cheaply but constricted them to sell it only in their country. This way, developing countries are allowed access to the drugs that they need while the pharmaceutical giants are still able to earn profits from the drugs.
One interesting reading we had was the article about disruptive change in healthcare. It is sad to see that many institutions and doctors are resistant to change because of the selfish reason of protecting one's security. For example, nurses are not allowed to administer drugs and patients have to wait for doctors to administer and prescribe them to their patients. This serves to be more costly and time-inefficient. What we need to do is embrace disruptive change and in turn, doctors should disrupt the higher levels in the medicine industry, for example, specialists.
Some key takeaways from the presentations by my classmates include the availability of counterfeit drugs in the market as shared by veronica. I am astonished that there is actually a demand for these drugs as it is very clear that these are detrimental to our health, and no matter how cheap this drugs are, they can never replace our health. To me, this is an example of using health to get wealth.
On the other hand, Kara shared about organ transplant and that there is a presence of an organ black market in our world today. In this case, this is an example of using wealth to get health. People in developed countries are willing to pay large amounts of money for a kidney, in the hope that the new kidney might help extend their life.
This lesson has been an enriching one and I am looking forward to next week where we go into the agriculture and farming industry. I felt however, that we could have talked more about specific innovations in the medical industry that came about through life sciences. For example, 3D printing of blood vessels are now being carried out and there is a possibility that organs might be generated from 3D printing in the future. Overall, I would give this lesson a 9/10.
Lenard
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