February 22, 2011 –
Senyei: Genomic sequencing, regenerative medicine and sensors that monitor personal health are among technologies that could improve healthcare outcomes.
Drew Senyei, M.D. knows a little something about healthcare. For more than 25 years, the physician and venture capitalist has built emerging life science and healthcare companies and holds 25 patents of his own. He invented the first FDA-approved test to predict premature births, a product used by more than 1 million women.
Dr. Senyei, a CALIT2 advisory board member and the managing director of Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, shared his insights about the future of healthcare with a CALIT2 audience last week, and unless changes are made, that future doesn’t look good. Increased life expectancies and poor lifestyle choices are leading to a plethora of chronic diseases that are taxing an already ill-functioning system, he noted.
“The U.S. is doing a very poor job of delivering healthcare. We spend more than any other developed country and we’re not necessarily getting the best results.”
In 2008, the U.S. spent 16.2 percent of its gross domestic product on healthcare, a figure that is expected to reach 30 percent by 2040 and 97 percent by the end of the century. “Clearly this is not a sustainable trend,” Senyei said. “Warren Buffett calls this the economic tapeworm that’s eating our economy and it’s significantly impacting our global competitiveness.”
Health, as determined by the World Health Organization in 1948, is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of infirmity, the audience learned. Achieving health, both individually and as a nation, can be facilitated by implementing emerging technologies. “We can’t depend on old techniques and tools in fighting this epidemic; they simply don’t work.”
Before delivering his talk, Senyei visited several CALIT2 labs. He watches as sensors monitor balance in the eMedia Studio.
He examines a paper-based diagnostic solution in the eHealth Collaboratory.
A “harmonic convergence” of advances in biology, information sciences and communications can provide solutions, he believes, and CALIT2 can play an important role. “What we will need for the future of medicine is what CALIT2 has – a multidisciplinary team. We need to focus that on the hard problems that are in healthcare today,” he said.
Disruptive technologies that will alter our approach to healthcare include genome sequencing, which can improve predictive diagnostics; personalized drugs that more effectively target existing illnesses as well as prevent the onset of certain diseases; and regenerative medicine. Senyei said he believes that within the next five years, every newborn will be sequenced “because that information will be very useful for all sorts of actions in preventing disease and prescribing drugs.”
Harmful drug interactions are responsible for more than 100,000 deaths in the U.S. but the advent of genomics into pharmacology will allow real-time genetic profiling information at the point of dispensing. “I think this has to happen if we’re going to cut the cost of healthcare and make sure we’re treating the right patient with the right drug,” said Senyei.
Senyei experiments with a sensor-laden glove that uses music feedback to help stroke patients recover hand function.
Lifestyle choices and human biology are only one part of the problem, however. Genes behave differently under different circumstances; Senyei said even identical twins don’t have confluence when it comes to complex diseases. “Not only understanding the genetic basis of disease but also understanding what the environment does will be critical to understanding how we treat these diseases,” he said, in referring to the role that systems biology can play.
In order for all these technologies to be effective, however, a “paradigm shift in how we deliver healthcare” is essential. The system must move from its current reactive model to a more proactive approach. “I believe information technology is the underlying pillar by which we can get to this new system of P4 medicine,” he said, referring to healthcare that is preventive, predictive, personalized and participatory.
Patients must become more active consumers, a process that can be facilitated by incentive-based economics and improved government policy. Rewarding “wellness” with lower insurance premiums is one solution. Providing digital tools that allow patients to monitor their own health is another step in the right direction, and one in which Senyei sees significant business opportunities, including an increase in medical social-networking sites, as well as the need for advanced data analysis.
Senyei predicts advances in genetics that will allow doctors to see “obesity genes” susceptible to outside influences; single-cell profiles, which will facilitate earlier diagnoses; serum protein profiling; and 3D MRI biomarkers that can rule out diseases like Alzheimer’s.
“In short, we will be able to analyze our deviation from health and recommend personalized care, and the data will be at the physician’s and the patient’s fingertips.
“Optimizing health is going to be a complex problem that will require the integration of information technology… and the ability to capture data in a patient-centric system and integrate it into a learning healthcare system,” he said.
— Anna Lynn Spitzer
