Precision medicine

As biology and technology become ever more closely intertwined, new opportunities are emerging to improve healthcare through the use of innovative digital technologies. Here's a glimpse at some of the great strides that innovation teams within pharmaceutical companies are making in the exciting field of digital health. 

We live in an age in which technology is moving at a rapid pace, creating new fields and disrupting existing models and processes. From a career standpoint, staying abreast of new innovations in pharma can be extremely beneficial, helping you to adapt to change, seize new opportunities and focus on developing the skills that you will need in the future.
Steve Jobs predicted "The biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology", a movement referred to as digital health or mHealth (mobile health). This forecast by the late Apple CEO appears to be on track as consumer technologies such as mobile phones and wearable devices are already beginning to revolutionise the wider health industry. These and other technologies are also proving to have great potential in pharmaceutical research and development, and are being adopted by pharma companies to assist in developing new drugs as well as improving patient outcomes and increasing patient access through reduced costs.
Here are 5 emerging digital health innovations that are starting to have an impact on the pharma industry: 

Precision medicine
Precision medicine is an approach that integrates clinical and molecular information to understand the biological basis of disease. This information can be obtained by converting DNA into data through a process called genome sequencing. Researchers can use this data to identify specific gene abnormalities, or biomarkers, to understand which types of patients a drug will be most effective for, and who is likely to experience severe side-effects. This can aid in the development of new targeted therapies and the repurposing of existing drugs.
Targeted therapies are tailored to the genetic makeup of individual patients so genomic testing is required to ascertain the most effective therapy before it is administered. This understanding of the relationship between a drug and an individual's genes enables doctors to administer the right drug for the right patient at the right dose, first time – leading to better outcomes and reduced adverse effects. 
Thanks in part to President Obama’s $215 million Precision Medicine Initiative and a plethora of genomics research companies, genome projects are beginning to gather momentum. The FDA has expedited programmes for targeted therapies which can reduce the time that it takes to bring these therapies to market. 
In the UK, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, AstraZeneca, Biogen, AbbVie and others are reportedly working with Genomics England on their project to sequence 100,000 genomes from 70,000 NHS patients with rare diseases and cancer, and both Roche and Pfizer have also agreed deals with 23andMe to access their community of patients with Parkinson’s and Crohn’s disease respectively, to look for genetic clues to their causes. 

Pharma research institutes are already beginning to take advantage of mHealth technology to conduct clinical research. Smartphones with powerful processors and advanced sensors that can track movement, take measurements and record information are highly useful in post-market studies and allow people to participate in studies more easily. The more people who contribute their data, the bigger the numbers, the truer the representation of a population, and the more powerful the results, so an mHealth app has the potential to engage unprecedented numbers of individuals in large geographical areas. Apple currently has several mHealth apps for clinical research on the iPhone, including apps targeting Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma and breast cancer, which have been developed by leading research institutes. 

However, mHealth sensors are not just confined to smartphones; wearable devices such as smartwatches (eg. Apple Watch, Samsung Gear) and fitness bands (eg. FitBit, Jawbone, Garmin) contain accelerometers and global positioning (GPS) and sensors capable of taking biometric readings. As these sensors become more advanced and accurate, there is huge potential for the use of wearable devices for gathering clinical trial data remotely in real-time, real-world settings. Mobile and wearable devices that are already in use or under development feature sensors that are able to track heart rate, sleep, stress, temperature, blood glucose, blood oxygen, and various other measurements that would be useful in clinical trials. The true power of these devices however, comes from their internet connectivity, which enables the information they collect to be synced with other devices or instantly shared with doctors and researchers. This could create a shift for pharma companies and CROs towards remote monitoring and reduce the need for patients to make visits to a research centre or hospital when participating in a clinical trial