The Exciting Future of Medicine

In his book The Future of Medicine: Megatrends in Health Care That Will Improve Your Quality of Life, Stephen C. Schimpff, MD, FACP, writes about the changing paradigm that evolved from “diagnose and predict outcome,” to “diagnose and treat” and, now, “predict and prevent.” Soon, physicians will have an entire range of medicines that will treat deadly diseases. And, says Dr. Schimpff, “the possibility exists to know what a person is predisposed to develop with time — heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and so on.” Indeed, at every bend in the medical road, advances are leading to promising treatments and cures for diseases that have plagued society for decades, as well as new methods that promise to substantially improve quality of care. We explore just such exciting innovations in this issue.

Cancer, the dreaded diagnosis! Cancer is elusive, adapting and evolving even with treatment. Still, fewer people are dying from a cancer diagnosis today due to cutting-edge research in the areas of targeted therapies, immunotherapy, combination therapies, vaccines and genomics. Our article “Breakthroughs in the War on Cancer” relates how Big Pharma, researchers, philanthropists and insurers are pooling their public and private resources to fight it.

A fledgling industry that is being hailed as science fiction turned reality is stem cell therapy. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn’t yet approved any stem cell-based products beyond one to date, the technology is being used to treat and, in some cases, cure people with multiple sclerosis, severe combined immunodeficiency, stroke and traumatic brain injury. We delve into these current trends in our article “Stem Cell Therapies: The Era of Regenerative Medicine?” as well as the controversies. As this field advances, still to be answered are who has access to it (researchers and/or clinicians) and how ethical concerns grounded in moral and religious beliefs can be resolved.

There’s no question that the displacement of “on-demand” treatment with routine prophylactic infusions was a life-changer for hemophilia patients. Even so, the process is cumbersome, requiring frequent infusions, and problematic, especially for children. Fortunately, as detailed in our article “Transforming Hemophilia Care: A New Generation of Extended HalfLife Factor Concentrates,” introduction of extended half-life factor VIII and IX concentrates allows patients to infuse every seven to 14 days instead of multiple times each week, thus reducing treatment burden and potentially improving treatment adherence. Today, there are five licensed products and three pending approval.

Of course, treatment involves far more than medications. With the new electronic healthcare requirements, providers are caught in a quandary of compliance and optimal patient care. As explained in our article “The Growing Profession of Medical Scribes,” these new team members are helping providers spend more face-to-face time during visits with patients, as scribes take on the burden of data entry.

Also trending as described in our article “Real-Time Healthcare Monitoring” is improving quality of care with remote digital technologies. From apps to watches, these devices allow providers to track patients’ health status, reduce care costs and even predict patient outcomes.

As always, we hope you enjoy this issue of BioSupply Trends Quarterly, and find it both relevant and helpful to your practice.

Patrick M. Schmidt

Publisher