Apple and Google stake a claim on big pharma’s turf
March 22, 2015 12:18 pm
Apple and Google stake a claim on big pharma’s turf
Andrew Ward, Pharmaceuticals Correspondent
Drugmakers unsettled as large tech groups turn to
healthcare
Within 24 hours of Apple launching its platform for
health research this month, tens of thousands of iPhone users had signed up to
take part in five inaugural studies involving some of the US’s most respected
medical institutions.
A Harvard-affiliated cancer centre will measure the
long-term effects of chemotherapy by asking breast cancer survivors to input
information about their energy levels and mood. Another, led by Stanford
University, will use the iPhone’s sensors to investigate links between physical
activity and heart disease.
Apple’s ResearchKit is the latest example of the
technology industry’s deepening interest in healthcare as mobile devices open
new ways of measuring wellbeing.
Apps ranging from step-counters and heart-rate meters to
alcohol breathalyser kits and ovulation monitors already provide individuals
with a wealth of personal health information. ResearchKit demonstrates the
potential for this data to be aggregated in ways that could shed light on
trends across wider population groups.
Jeff Williams, Apple’s head of operations, says the
software will turn the iPhone into a “powerful diagnostic tool” and overcome
some of the problems with clinical research, such as the difficulty of
recruiting patients. “There are hundreds of millions of iPhone users out there
who would gladly contribute if only it was easy to do so,” he says.
Apple is not alone. Google has invested in two companies
that aim to do their own research on the back of the proliferation of medical
data: 23andMe, a DNA-testing company that has a bank of genetic information
from the 850,000 customers who have used its $99 DNA testing kit; and Calico,
which is focused on age-related diseases.
Digital health venture funding
Roche and Pfizer, two of the world’s biggest drugmakers,
have deals with 23andMe to tap its data for use in research. But this month the
California company went a step further in making its own push into drug
development by hiring Richard Scheller, former head of research and development
at Genentech, the biotech arm of Roche.
For traditional healthcare companies, the arrival of
Google and Apple on their territory is unsettling. Only a fraction of the value
of a drug is in the physical pill or injection itself. Could new entrants from
Silicon Valley and beyond muscle in on the research and development process?
David Bates, chief innovation officer at the Brigham and
Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, says such a day is a long way off.
Most activity so far has been limited to fitness apps providing motivational
information rather than truly medical-grade data.
“The greatest benefit [of digital health] is for people
with chronic conditions, but many of these apps are not designed to be used by
those people,” he says. The target market is affluent and fitness-obsessed
iPhone user, rather than people whose lifestyles most need changing.
To provide real research value health apps need to be
connected to electronic patient records, Dr Bates adds. There remain
significant systemic barriers to this happening in most countries, not to
mention public concerns over data privacy.
Nima Ahmadi, co-founder of Bioniq Health, a digital
health start-up based in Palo Alto, California, says: “The noise-to-signal
ratio in this space is one of the highest I have seen. There’s a lot of people
doing a lot of things without a lot of traction.”
Google delves deeper into health data quest
Harnessing personal data to improve the health of its
users has long ranked among Google’s loftier ambitions.
More clinical-grade apps are gradually emerging, such as
glucose monitors to help manage diabetes. But these face scrutiny from
regulators, who plan to subject them to the same rigorous approval process as
medical devices such as heart stents and pacemakers.
Joe Jimenez, chief executive of Novartis, the Swiss drugs
group, says the health and technology industries must share expertise. His
company is working with Google on a “smart” contact lens that will measure
blood sugar levels in tear fluid and transmit the data to a mobile device.
“Novartis is one of the largest contact lens manufacturers, but we don’t know
anything about microprocessors and about sensors,” he says.
By working together, he says, the two industries can
develop breakthrough technologies that help meet the growing health needs of an
ageing global population. What is becoming clear, however, is that Google,
Apple and others want a share of the resulting value.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2015.
Comments
Post a Comment