El Mundo, one of the most prestigious newspapers in Spain, has a business supplement on innovation and entrepreneurship. They invited me to write an article on innovation and it was published yesterday. The original article in English is what follows below.
Innovation in health is being driven by two major changes—the science
behind the understanding of health and disease and the expectation that
consumers need to be better informed about their own health.
Science has moved us from looking at single causal factors to
recognizing that there are many factors that impact on our health and that
these factors are connected in ways that we previously were unable to measure.
This means that innovation in health will be less about the separate parts of
the body (heart, lung, brain) and more about the systems that are key to
wellness. Our historic view of microbes as something that must be destroyed has
been upended and provides a great example of why a change in focus from single
causes and functions to co-dependencies is so important in understanding the
mechanics of our health ecosystem.
We know that microbes are found in and outside of every person and for
the most part help to keep your body working well. Some aid in digestion while
others on the skin actually protect you from having harmful microbes pass
through your skin. We need to be able to understand what they do and how to
help them do what they need to do. Taking a systems approach to microbes
requires us to collect and analyze data on our microbiome by looking at it as
one interrelated system. And the solutions and business opportunities are in
the products and technologies that work with this system.
At the same time, the vision of health that was defined by longevity is
being recalibrated to focus on wellness, activity, and productivity and the quality
of those longer years of life. With this new definition comes the demand for
more information to be made available to consumers in a meaningful way. The
Internet has trained consumers worldwide that information should be available
within a few clicks. And this is especially true for the information about our
own health and the health of others.
The blossoming area of biometrics and ways that this information can be gathered
creates opportunities to market an array of new products. Professional athletes
are the earliest beneficiaries of some of the new products that marry
biometrics with giving immediate feedback.
For the average weekend fitness warrior there is now wearable technology
embedded in clothes, e.g., smart fabrics, that monitor heart rate and pulse and
transmit this information through wireless technology. A person can have the
information sent to a cell phone or a computer where their every movement and
its effect on their body can be studied and monitored. And the opportunities
for innovation exist in the devices that are being developed, their use, the
analysis of the data, and even in the development of protocols of what happens
when there is a breach in a person’s privacy.
Innovation means addressing desires and wants even before a person
recognizes there is a need. It is science that will be the key gateway to our
future and the successful entrepreneur who will monetize it by new products or
services.
