Innovative Technologies Require Innovative Ways of Thinking
New Orleans, LA, USA—May 20, 2019—ISPOR, the professional
society for health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), opened its ISPOR
2019 annual
conference this morning with a keynote and first plenary, “The Dawn of
Disruption in the Health Sector: Will Innovative Technologies Require
Innovative Thinking?”
The conference began with a keynote address by Daniel Kraft, MD, faculty chair for
medicine, Singularity University, founder and chair, Exponential Medicine,
Stanford, CA, USA. Dr Kraft is a Stanford and Harvard trained
physician-scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, and innovator. His keynote explored
the impact of disruptive medical therapies on medicine today and into the
future, setting the stage for the plenary session.
Dr Kraft contrasted the current “sick care” model that
is intermittent, reactive, and siloed (ie, where information doesn’t flow) with
the potential to move into a more continuous, real-time, proactive world that
focuses on wellness care. He encouraged the audience to reimagine HEOR. Dr
Kraft stressed how important it is to “be the disrupter, not the disrupted,”
noting that sometimes innovation also requires that we unlearn things. He sees
healthcare moving from today’s “quantified self” to “quantified health.” He described
a world where future healthcare could function as a type of “check engine
light” for patients with technologies that use sensors to track personalized
health metrics, where augmented reality could help both patients and physicians
deal with pain or depression, where “medical selfies” could allow patients to
capture key diagnostics at home and send to their physicians, and where personalized
polypills that could be printed on demand at a local pharmacy or even at home.
Dr Kraft does not see artificial intelligence replacing physicians. Instead he
sees physicians working cooperatively to improve healthcare using practices he calls
“intelligence augmentation.”
This panel session examined the impact, challenges,
and opportunities of the recent renaissance of groundbreaking, new, curative
health technologies. The session was moderated by Clifford Goodman, PhD,
The Lewin Group, Falls Church, VA, USA. Speakers included Timothy Caulfield,
LLM, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada; Fleur Chandler, Patient
Advisory Board, Duchenne, Twickenham, England, UK; Alexander Billioux, MD, PhD,
Louisiana Department of Health, Baton Rouge, LA, USA; and Ron Philip, Spark
Therapeutics, Inc, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Dr Kraft joined the panel for the
question and answer session.
The healthcare sector is undergoing a renaissance of
next-generation drug development that includes many promising future therapies.
More than 2600 clinical trials of gene therapies are completed or ongoing,
nearly 1000 trials of regenerative medicine are in progress worldwide, and more
than 7000 trials for medical devices are underway, including innovations such
as bionic eye-brain implants and spinal cord stimulators. Medical innovation
extends beyond drugs and devices to include advances in 3-D printing and the
potential for artificial intelligence to generate powerful new tools for
disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
Dr Goodman moderated the session. Mr Phillip noted
that gene therapies are disrupting the healthcare system by addressing diseases
that we haven’t yet been able to tackle. The existing marketplace, however, has
not yet adapted to handle the pricing of curative therapies.
Ms Chandler discussed how the regulatory environment
has adjusted for rare disease therapies, but that the health technology
assessment process struggles with this as “the data is not there” at the time
of approval. She talked about her work with Project HERCULES (HEalth Research
Collaboration United in Leading Evidence Synthesis). Project HERCULES was created
by Duchenne UK and is a collaborative global project designed to increase the
chances of patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy of accessing innovative
treatments.
Mr Caulfield cautioned that while many health
innovations seem promising, that it is important to “watch the hype” and listen
to the data/evidence. He also stressed that we need to focus on proven ways to
actually change people’s behavior as technology alone cannot do that. Mr
Caulfield acknowledged that while new technology can have an impact it can also
detract from approaches that we know have a proven health impact (eg, smoking
cessation).
Dr Billioux outlined how Louisiana is employing an
innovative “Netflix subscription model” to treat its hepatitis C patients
toward the goal of eliminating the disease in their state. Louisiana is pooling
its funds dedicated to treating the disease and working with the manufacturers
of hepatitis C therapies to have unrestricted access to treat patients who suffer from the disease who live
in the state.
ISPOR is recognized globally as the leading professional
society for health economics and outcomes research and its role in improving
healthcare decisions. ISPOR 2019 is the leading global HEOR conference and
draws nearly 4000 healthcare thought leaders and stakeholders, including
researchers and academicians, assessors and regulators, payers and policy
makers, the life sciences industry, healthcare providers, and patient
engagement organizations.
Additional information on the conference can be found at:
Conference Information | Program | Registration | Short Course Program | Sponsors | Exhibitors | Press
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ABOUT
ISPOR
ISPOR, the professional society for health economics
and outcomes research (HEOR), is an international, multistakeholder, nonprofit
dedicated to advancing HEOR excellence to improve decision making for health
globally. The Society is the leading source for scientific conferences,
peer-reviewed and MEDLINE®-indexed publications, good practices
guidance, education, collaboration, and tools/resources in the field.
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