Bur­dened with for­mi­da­ble chal­lenges, such as in­con­sis­tent ac­cess and de­ploy­ment of care in ad­di­tion to the un­sus­tain­able cost of care, the US health­care sys­tem has laid the ground­work for the use of dig­i­tal tools to re­fresh the prac­tice of med­i­cine. In re­cent years, in ad­di­tion to the pen­e­tra­tion of tech gi­ants in­to the realm of health­care (cue Google, Ap­ple), ma­jor drug­mak­ers have al­so em­braced the sig­nif­i­cance of these tech­nolo­gies, hir­ing chief dig­i­tal/tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cers to ush­er in the era of telemed­i­cine, wear­ables, cloud com­put­ing, ma­chine learn­ing and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence. On Tues­day, France’s Sanofi said its chief med­ical of­fi­cer Ameet Nath­wani would al­so serve as the com­pa­ny’s first chief dig­i­tal of­fi­cer (CDO).

Sanofi fol­lows its peers in mak­ing the move. Last year, Pfiz­er and Mer­ck named their CDOs, while No­var­tis and GSK an­nounced sim­i­lar ap­point­ments in 2017.

Nath­wani, who was hired by Sanofi as chief med­ical of­fi­cer in 2016, is now al­so charged with in­te­grat­ing Sanofi’s ar­se­nal of med­i­cines with dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and ink­ing dig­i­tal part­ner­ships.

The promise of dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy to po­ten­tial­ly de­moc­ra­tize med­i­cine, en­abling in­di­vid­u­als and re­searchers to gen­er­ate re­al-world da­ta, is an­oth­er rea­son dig­i­tal health tech­nolo­gies are so com­pelling. In the UK, for­mer health sec­re­tary Je­re­my Hunt com­mis­sioned Cal­i­for­nia-based Er­ic Topol, a car­di­ol­o­gist, au­thor and dig­i­tal med­i­cine re­searcher, to car­ry out an in­de­pen­dent re­view in­to the dig­i­tal train­ing needs of NHS staff. The re­port was re­leased on Mon­day, de­tail­ing the promise of ge­nomics, AI, ro­bot­ics and dig­i­tal med­i­cine in the pre­ven­tion, man­age­ment and treat­ment of dis­ease, and high­light­ed the im­por­tance of ed­u­cat­ing the NHS work­force of these ad­vances.

To­day, here in Lon­don, a thrill to fi­nal­ly hold our new re­port for @NHSEn­g­land @MattHancock @DHSC­govuk. As far as I know, the 1st coun­try to plan #health­care w/ #AI, #ge­nomics, dig­i­tal (and to 2040!). On­line, #OA to­mor­row, thanks to the great work @NHS_HealthE­dEng pic.twit­ter.com/HjxH4naY­GR

— Er­ic Topol (@Er­ic­Topol) Feb­ru­ary 10, 2019

Na­ture too has rec­og­nized the trans­for­ma­tive po­ten­tial of dig­i­tal med­i­cine. In an ar­ti­cle en­ti­tled “Dig­i­tal med­i­cine, on its way to be­ing just plain med­i­cine,” the jour­nal sig­nalled the launch of its peer-re­viewed jour­nal fo­cused specif­i­cal­ly on the dig­i­ti­za­tion of med­i­cine last year.

Pho­to: Ameet Nath­wani. SANOFI

While the US biosimilars industry has generally been a disappointment since its inception, with FDA approving 33 biosimilars since 2015, just a fraction of those have immediately followed their approvals with launches. And more than a handful of biosimilars for two of the biggest blockbusters of all time — AbbVie’s Humira and Amgen’s Enbrel — remain approved by FDA but still have not launched because of legal settlements.

As President Biden’s Build Back Better Act — and, with it, potentially the Democrats’ last shot at major drug pricing reforms in the foreseeable future — remains on life support, the Congressional Budget Office isn’t helping their case.

The CBO last week released a new slide deck, outlining an update to its model on how Medicare negotiations might take a bite out of new drugs making it to market. The new model estimates a 10% long-term reduction in the number of new drugs, whereas a previous CBO report from August estimated that 8% fewer new drugs will enter the market over 30 years.

Martin Shkreli will have to find a new nickname.

A federal judge banned the former biotech CEO and “Pharma Bro” from the drug industry on Friday, ordering him to pay nearly $65 million in illicit profits. Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud in 2017 and is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence, though he originally gained notoriety for raising the price of the antiparasitic drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 in 2015.