Wireless technology to revolutionise global medicine

Wireless technology will revolutionise medicine and the healthcare sector in Asia is expected to take up about 25 per cent of global revenues in the next three years, performing better than the US and Europe.

Asia has become the next frontier for pharmaceutical firms that are desperate to find their next blockbuster drug while keeping research costs low.

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Wireless technology will revolutionise medicine and the healthcare sector in Asia is expected to take up about 25 per cent of global revenues in the next three years, performing better than the US and Europe.

Asia has become the next frontier for pharmaceutical firms that are desperate to find their next blockbuster drug while keeping research costs low.

Mobile health through technology is moving the world towards pre-emptive and personalised medicine.

These were some of the dramatic forecasts made in Singapore last night by Reenita Das, the senior vice president, healthcare Asia Pacific, with research house Frost & Sullivan at last night's fourth annual Asia Pacific Excellence in Healthcare Awards banquet.

Das told the awards dinner audience that massive restructuring in the bio-pharmaceutical industry, combined with the current economic conditions, provided the formula for "a 2009 R&D environment based on changes unlike those that you have ever seen before".

Healthcare economic boom

"We [in the healthcare industry] are beginning to witness the biggest economic boom that we have even seen before in our careers," she said. "Biology is likely to become the greatest single driver of the global economy. Over the past decade, the rise of Asia as an important location for such [technology] work, or 'innovation offshoring', has challenged the notion that the US will remain the innovation capital of the world."

Das said companies needed to set their strategic sights on a future world where Asia is not going to be just a market, or an outsourcing centre, or a manufacturing powerhouse, but also a key component of drug discoveries and high-end innovation as well.

"Mobile health is one of the most exciting things that are beginning to happen as we speak," she said. "Wireless monitoring of the patient's biology will help us get rid of the waste and the one-size-fits-all model. It will help us move towards preemptive and personalised medicine. Wireless technology will enable consumer-driven healthcare, giving them power through their own mobile device. There is no better potential solution and we believe that wireless [technology] will revolutionise medicine."

Das told the audience that, with the advent of cell phones, simple, yet sophisticated, healthcare has become available to everyone. Technology was enabling healthcare to move upstream; out of the acute-care hospital and back to clinics, to doctors' officers and even into schools, workplaces and the home.

"The focus will change, well, away from intervening in the acute phase of the disease and towards early screening, detection and treatment; even towards preventing the disease in the first place."

Other presenters told the awards dinner audience that Asia sees more scientist and engineer graduates than the rest of the world combined. By 2010, it was estimated that 30 per cent of the world's stored data will be medical images and cloud computing was highlighted as a technology with a great future for sharing such images.