pharmaceutical

July 2, 2014

Antibiotics- what’s all the fuss about?

Fact – no new class of antibiotic for the past quarter of century

Today the UK news was focused around David Cameron’s announcement of a review on antibiotics led by Jim O’Neill, an economist.  This comes on the back of 3 other announcements in the past year, namely

  • the G8 Summit of Science ministers met in London last June to discuss antibiotic resistance in medicine, and how governments can work together to develop new antibiotics and employ them more wisely.
  • the government launched their Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy in September 2013 including 7 specific action areas on which the Royal Pharmaceutical Society provided
  • the Longitude prize of £10 million was awarded last month to finding an innovative way to prevent the rise of antibiotic resistance

So why bring in an economist in to solve a medical problem?

To solve the market failure by …

creating incentives for pharmacos to develop new antibiotics

looking at alternative sources  and types of antimicrobial agents

… to ultimately prevent a global crisis.

 

July 2, 2014

My recently published article on data sharing and analytics in life sciences

I recently had an article published in the European Pharmaceutical Contractor’s summer issue. The Wealth of Information starts from the premise that the convergence of separate health systems (payers, providers, life sciences, etc.) along with greater connectivity, mobility and the advent of social media into healthcare  is leading to an enormous increase in data. Organisations are struggling to work out what to do with it and the question is not only being wrestled by the the IT department but also across the supply chain, into marketing and even into the HR department. There is no doubt that the use of the collective data offers potential benefits across the entire healthcare ecosystem – from selecting the best drug candidates and targeting the right patients for clinical trials in R&D to personalising treatment management and investing in holistic care for the chronically sick.  The article concludes with 5 ways that life sciences organisations  can harness and share that data to create insights, inform actions and drive better outcomes both withing their 4 walls but also across all the entire healthcare ecosystem.

I welcome your thoughts and comments on the article