Imagine being paralysed and having an implanted microchip that could action a message from your brain to move your prosthetic arm. Or a diagnostic system that could pick up Alzheimer’s a decade before you develop any symptoms. Or a 3D printing machine that could print a pill with a combination of drugs tailored just for you.

Sound far-fetched? Then meet Dr Daniel Kraft, a Harvard-trained oncologist-cum-entrepreneur-cum-healthcare futurologist. The faculty chair for medicine and founder of Exponential Medicine at the Silicon Valley-based Singularity University, no one could be more serious – or ambitious – about the revolutionary impact that technology will have on the future of healthcare.

The internet of things, constant connectivity, ever cheaper hardware, big data, machine learning: Kraft’s list of converging “meta-trends” goes on. “This set of technologies, especially when meshed together, offers a real opportunity to reshape and reinvent healthcare around the planet,” he says. Kraft’s vision is of a patient-centred, tech-led healthcare system (as opposed to “sickcare”, as he defines the current system) that promises to turn the medical world on its head. But what implications does it hold for future business of healthcare?

Big pharma is one of the first in line for a shake-up, Kraft warns. Today drug firms’ profits are based on blockbuster drugs for pervasive diseases. But what if medical science reveals (as it is doing) that there are really hundreds of sub-types of diabetes, say, or lung cancer? And what if a patient’s full genome sequence can show the likelihood of a blockbuster treatment not working?

“There’s a spectrum of diseases with different molecular pathways and pharma is going to have to adapt to smaller markets in terms of individual drugs,” Kraft says.

On the flipside, the prospect of people being able to take part in clinical trials on their smartphones promises to drastically speed up the time drugs can get to market. Prescribing an app along with a pill will also become commonplace, he suggests, enabling patients to keep on track with their medicine and adjust their dosage if required. Both potentially promise big returns for the pharmaceutical industry. Drug distribution is set for a radical overhaul too. Digital device manufacturers are already experimenting with so-called “implantables” that use bioelectric sensors to track patients’ vital signs and release a drug dose as and when required. At the other end of the spectrum, drones are now being used to deliver drugs to remote areas or disaster zones. Matternet, one of 50 or so start-up firms to have spun out of Singularity University, has been doing exactly that in Haiti recently.

Kraft warns that radical change is afoot for healthcare providers as well. Imagine a scenario where patients can compare the results of different hospitals or even individual doctors? Or where patients don’t need to come to a clinic once a month for an electrocardiogram but instead wear a smart Band-Aid “patch” that sends the same information 24/7 to their doctor’s surgery? Patient power, in other words.



Expect a new age of “value-based medical care”, he says. Consider hospitals. Instead of being paid on how many beds they fill or how many surgeries they perform, as now, market incentives will exist to do the opposite – that is, keep people from ever coming to hospital by anticipating their illnesses and providing them with preventative solutions. “Hospitals in the US are now starting to send patients home with an app, a set of [WiFi] connected scales and a blood pressure cuff, so they can better manage their medications and their diet,” says Kraft, who claims the approach “stops them bouncing back to hospital”.

In New Orleans, Ochsner Health System has been piloting Apple’s new HealthKit and Watch to just such a scheme.

Looking ahead, Kraft’s smart money is squarely on medical software innovators, digital device manufacturers and “precision medicine” providers. This isn’t a startling revelation. Analysts have estimated that the already huge US$55bn global digital health market will grow at a staggering 21.4% per year.

Few have as clear vision of what the future could look like as Kraft, however. He pictures doctors being held medically negligent for not using artificial intelligence to diagnose cancer; surgeons having CT scans layered over a patient’s body via augmented reality; medical students using Oculus Rift to explore the inside of the heart; burn victims being virtually transported to a snow-coated mountain top as a pain therapy. It’s dizzying stuff.

“The opportunity now is for the medical student, the nurse, the doctor, whomever, to create new solutions using some of these technologies, particularly when they converge,” he says.

The idea of convergence (or “super-convergence”; Kraft is keen on superlatives) is critical to his thinking. Bespoke business opportunities abound, but the radical overhaul of tomorrow’s healthcare will only happen when technologies start interweaving. And that will only happen when the worlds of business and medicine start talking.

“We need to let doctors and nurses and patients and technologists and pharma and biotech understand where technology is and where it’s going,” he says. He points to clinicians having access to technology such as IBM Watson, the self-learning artificial intelligence tool that can “read” 100,000s of academic papers in seconds, among other things. “If you know IBM Watson will available on your smartphone or in the cloud, what could you as a clinician do with that?”

The exponential medicine programme that Kraft founded at Singularity five years ago sets out to achieve precisely this kind of cross-fertilisation between technologists, business folk and clinicians. To date, the initiative has spawned around 50 start-ups.

“The future is coming faster than you might think,” he says, with characteristic optimism. “Soon we won’t wait for disease to happen. We’ll care for ourselves before we get sick.”

Daniel Kraft will be speaking at Creative Innovation 2016, which will be in Melbourne from 7 to 9 November