Note from the Editor

Remember when a phone was just for calling people? How quaint. We are living in the age of convergence, and healthcare, more than any other technology, exemplifies that in the minds of many. That is one of the perhaps surprising results of a survey conducted by Cambridge Consultants.

When asked which area of technological development would have the greatest impact on their lives in the next 50 years, almost 43% of people responding to the survey chose healthcare. It was followed by wireless communications (20.7%), transportation (15.2%) and computing (10%). And here is where it gets really interesting: if you consider that wireless communications came in second, “an alignment of the two areas could prove most powerful,” notes the consultancy. 

Another survey question asked which healthcare technology would have the greatest impact over the next 50 years. A plurality of respondents (27.8%) chose remote monitoring technologies, which squeeked ahead of stem cell therapy (25.7%) and a more nebulous catch-all category—improvements in therapy—which captured 24.6% of votes  (Graphics showing some of the survey results are shown to the right). But as exciting as remote monitoring and sundry ambient-assisted-living enablers are to health consumers, the technology of tomorrow will take convergence to a whole new level.

In a recent interview in Clinica magazine, Steven Burrill, CEO of life sciences merchant bank Burrill & Company, conjured a fascinating vision of how genome sequencing that began in 2000 will lead us to the pathway of predictability and, ultimately, prevention. “We can actually get ahead of disease and pre-empt its occurence,” he told Clinica.