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

An increase in demand of up to 79% for clinical trials in China has prompted Novotech the Asia-Pacific CRO to rapidly expand the China team, appointing expert local clinical executives to their Shanghai and Hong Kong offices. The company is planning to expand their team by 30% over the next quarter.

Novotech China has seen considerable demand recently which is borne out by research from GlobalData:
A global migration of clinical research is occurring from high-income countries to low and middle-income countries with emerging economies. Over the period 2017 to 2018, for example, the number of clinical trial sites opened by biotech companies in Asia-Pacific increased by 35% compared to 8% in the rest of the world, with growth as high as 79% in China.
Novotech CEO Dr John Moller said China offers the largest population in the world, rapid economic growth, and an increasing willingness by government to invest in research and development.
Novotech’s 23 years of experience working in the region means we are the ideal CRO partner for USA biotechs wanting to tap the research expertise and opportunities that China offers.
There are over 22,000 active investigators in Greater China, with about 5,000 investigators with experience on at least 3 studies (source GlobalData).

From PD-1 targeting to the RAS pathway to the STING complex, Thomas Gajewski has spent the past two decades of his career decoding the various ways the immune system can be unleashed to defend against cancer. So when the University of Chicago professor comes around to putting all his findings into a new platform for finding new targets, VCs and pharma groups alike pay attention.

“He’s been studying T cells for 20 years, plus he’s one of the world’s leaders if not the world leader in the space,” David Steinberg, partner at Longwood Fund, said. “Furthermore, let me add he did a lot of the foundational research and also some of the seminal clinical trials in the existing set of I/O agents. He understands the space really well, he understands the current strengths, and I think he understood really well what was missing, so he knew where to look.”

Earlier this week we got a look at Senator Kamala Harris’ position on drug prices. She’s proposing that HHS take an average price from single-payer systems like the UK, Germany and Canada — which leverage market access for lower prices — and use that to set the US price. Anything drug companies collect above that would be taxed at a rate of 100%.

And the rhetoric is scathing:
While families struggle to make it to the end of the month, pharmaceutical companies are turning record profits. They’re spending nearly as much on advertising as R&D. They’re manipulating their market power to hike prices on lifesaving generic drugs. They’re making twice the profit of the average industry in America and still increased drug prices by 10.5% over the past six months alone. Meanwhile, they are charging dramatically higher prices to American consumers.
That’s an escalation on Joe Biden’s plan, which includes drug importation from those cheaper markets as well as allowing Medicare to negotiate prices — something that virtually all Dems agree on now.