FutureMed Blog

Dr. Peter Diamandis Announces Formation of World’s First Forum For Pharma & Healthcare FuturistsIn an interview for IIR’s Drug Delivery Partnerships conference two weeks back, I gleaned some insight into the rapidly evolving state of medicine/healthcare courtesy of the renowned inventor and entrepreneur, Dean Kamen.

Among other things, Kamen insisted that future healthcare breakthroughs would result from a highly collaborative, multi-disciplinary effort in which non-traditional sciences – engineering, for example – would play a key role.

Today, I am pleased to bet without hedge that Kamen was right.

While Kamen may – perhaps unfortunately – be best known as the father of the Segway® human transporter, he has also contributed a thing or two to “modern” medicine: the insulin pump; the Crown™ stent; the ThinPrep^® Pap Test; portable dialysis…I could go on – and on – but you get the idea.

What each of these extraordinary, life-changing innovations has in common is that A) not one was conceived by the foremost medical researchers and specialists in their respective fields at Mayo, Johns Hopkins, etc., and B) each was designed by an engineer.

This latter point is particularly important, and I’m going to linger on it a while, because I believe that we’ve turned a corner in healthcare innovation.

Kamen told me that the “age of ‘experts’” was drawing to a close. In essence, this means that the mystique of a select group with an über-advanced, but finite skill set can no longer dictate the rate of – nor impede – progress. Indeed, policy today – as we’ve all learned with varying degrees of pain – does not move at the speed of technology.

In its place, the age of open innovation has at last fingered its precocious tentacles into the final, sacrosanct field of human endeavor: medical science.

For those of us in ePharma marketing who devote an inordinate amount of time to banging our heads against the wall; those of us who understand the concept of crowdsourced care; those of us who question what it means to be an “expert”; those of us who no longer market to – but instead market with – our consumers (you, me, our parents, our children and grandchildren), I bear good news:

This morning Dr. Peter Diamandis, co-founder of Singularity University – an unorthodox and audaciously ambitious venture co-founded with the genius inventor/philosopher/author Ray Kurzweil – unveiled“FurtureMed”.

This new cross-training professional development program focuses on game-changing technologies that may revolutionize the practice of medicine and radically transform healthcare and the health industry within 10 years. That’s right: ten years.

The premise is based largely on Kurzweil’s law of accelerating returns (akin to Moore’s law with regard to semiconductors). Put simply, Kurzweil contends that the pace of change – technological, intellectual, societal, etc. – is continuously accelerating at an exponential rate. In other words, what we’ve historically viewed as a linear phenomenon is, in fact, anything but. Kurzweil has plotted the course of accelerating change over and again throughout history with uncanny accuracy.

The key is that we’ve reached a proverbial tipping point on multiple fronts. We’re on a fast track now. Humankind’s ability to progress is hurtling toward a quasi zenith: the point at which machine intelligence will lap human intelligence isn’t far off.

This means, for example, that in the near future each of us may be infused with robotic red blood cells courtesy of nanotechnology that will work much harder and more efficiently than their biological counterparts, enabling a person to theoretically hold one’s breath for hours. Imagine sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool for four hours! Science fiction becomes fast fact.

But I digress…

FutureMed is one of approximately nine core tracks at Singularity University (there is, btw, a closely overlapping biotech track). SU also covers robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, energy, space, networks and computing and also health policy and law.

Why announce this program here at ePharma, and what has it to do with you?

FutureMed is uniquely designed for physicians, medical and pharma execs, investors and entrepreneurs who want to understand how quantum computing, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanomaterials, biotechnology, bioinformatics and synthetic biology will change the face of conventional healthcare – both in practice and as an industry. Do I have your attention?

This program could most assuredly benefit from a marketer’s perspective, especially in an age when the FDA is still wringing it’s hands over social media guidance while the world’s largest healthcare markets – the U.S. and Western Europe – use Facebook as a surrogate for the telephone and email.

I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Daniel Kraft – scientist, inventor, entrepreneur and physician – who is also the Head of Medicine at Singularity University. Kraft will, of course, play an instrumental role in FutureMed, and I’ll be publishing excerpts from our interview here after ePharma Summit’s conclusion, so be sure to check back and stay tuned.

In the meantime, a detailed press release will follow this blog. But for those of you who may be chomping at the bit, the inaugural FutureMed class will be called to session May 10 thru 15, 2011. VisitFutureMed2011.com for more information.

ABOUT SINGULARITY UNIVERSITY

Peter Diamandis, entrepreneur and visionary, co-founded Singularity University along with author, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. In partnership with NASA, Google, Autodesk, Cisco, Nokia, ePlanet Ventures and Kaufman Foundation, Singularity University was founded to develop and deliver a new level of post-graduate and professional education that helps leaders understand the power of exponential technologies in helping humanity and transforming their industry.

The new FutureMed program focuses on game changing exponential technologies that will revolutionize the practice of medicine and radically transform healthcare and the health industry in the decade ahead.

For more information, please visit www.SingularityU.org

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marc Dresner is an IIR communication lead with a background in trade journalism and marketing. He is the former executive editor of Pharma Market Research Report, a confidential newsletter for market researchers in the pharmaceutical industry. He may be reached at mdresner@iirusa.com

February 8, 2011

FutureMed Announcement Press Release

‘FutureMed’ at Singularity University to focus on impact of exponential technologies on the future of medicine & healthcare

FutureMed geared towards physicians, biotech executives, healthcare investors:

To be held May 10-15, 2011 at Singularity University NASA-Ames

MOFFETT FIELD, CA, –(Marketwire – Feb 8, 2011) - Singularity University (SU) — the academic institution with the goal of preparing the next generation of leaders to utilize exponential technologies in addressing humanity’s grand challenges — today announced a new industry specific program: “FutureMed’’ focused on exploring the impact of rapidly developing technologies on the cutting edge and future of health and biomedicine.

Medicine is poised to evolve dramatically through exponential technologies which range from those which enable ever more powerful imaging, smaller and more capable implantable devices, minimally invasive robotic mediated surgery, brain computer interfaces, to personalized and targeted gene and cancer based therapies.

“Few fields have more potential than the healthcare and biomedicine arena to be so positively changed through exponential technologies…” said Peter Diamandis MD, co-founder and Chairman of Singularity University and also founder of the X-prize. “I’m extremely excited for SU to offer the FutureMed executive program to forward thinking physicians and biomedical innovators. This will go beyond the lecture and workshop models of typical medical conferences or business programs and will create a real-world community for sharing medical ideas, knowledge and information”.

Singularity University offers highly interactive, fourday and sevenday Exponential Technologies Executive Programs for executives, investors, and entrepreneurs.  The faculty includes some of the world’s most distinguished leaders in their respective fields. These programs focus on preparing executives for the disruptive business opportunities and challenges resulting from exponential technologies.

The FutureMed executive program is designed uniquely for physicians (CME credit will be offered), medical executives, investors and entrepreneurs who are interested in understanding the powerful forces being unleashed into the medical field by areas such as genomics, the digitization of health data, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanomaterials, stem cell technology, systems medicine, bioinformatics, and synthetic biology.

FutureMed will inform and prepare physicians and senior healthcare executives to understand and recognize the opportunities and disruptive influences of exponentially growing technologies within medicine and healthcare. It will enable them to understand how many rapidly developing and converging fields are affecting the cutting edge, and the future of clinical practice and biomedical industry. The program brings together leading thinkers and practitioners who will discuss and in many cases demonstrate what is in the lab and transitioning to the bedside today and where technology will likely enter the wellness and clinical arena in the next 2 to 10 years, and beyond.  Breakthrough developments ranging from 3D printing to organ regeneration, from point-of-care lab-on-a-chip diagnostics to large-scale bioinformatics; from synthetic biology to new genomic therapies.  All of these topics and more are discussed in the context of the current transition from paper charts to the digitization of biomedical information, electronic health records and distributed healthcare and the evolution of technology to integrate medical practice.

Through a series of faculty speakers, panels, hands on experiences, site visits and in-depth workshops, and late night discussions, participants will complete this intensive 5-day program with new relationships, insights into unmet needs, trends, business concepts, and  collaborations that will transform the world of healthcare, from wellness, prevention, diagnosis and therapy.  Core tracks will explore the exponential trends  in:  Information & Data Driven Healthcare, Personalized Medicine, Regenerative Medicine, NeuroMedicine, and Med/Biotech and Entrepreneurship. FutureMed will also examine the policy and ethical implications associated with these trends.

“The acceleration of science and technology within biomedicine makes it more important than ever for clinicians, researchers, policy-makers, and business leaders to understand and approach the potential opportunities and risks of new technologies in a thoughtful and nuanced way,” said Neil Jacobstein, President of Singularity University.

FutureMed faculty include Daniel Kraft, MD a Stanford & Harvard trained hematologist/oncologist and stem cell researcher, and Chair for the Medicine track at Singularity University, Catherine Mohr MD, Director of Medical Research at Intuitive Surgical, Roni Zeiger MD, Chief Health Strategist at Google, Dean Ornish MD, Founder of the Preventative Medicine Institute, Christopher DeCharms PhD, neuroscientist and founder of Omneuron Inc, Michael Gillam MD, Director of the Microsoft Medical Media Lab, David Ewing Duncan Director of the Center of Life Science Policy at UC Berkeley and author of the ‘Experimental Man’, Andrew Kogelnick MD PhD, Founder of The Open Medicine Institute, Christopher Longhurst MD, Chief Medical Information Officer for Stanford’s Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital, Jordan Shlain MD, founder of Current Health, Dan Riskin MD, Stanford University Surgery & Biodesign Program, Allan May, CEO of Life Sciences Angels, Raymond McCauley PhD of Illumina & Co-founder of Genomera,  Michael West PhD, Founder of Geron and CEO of BioTime Pharmaceuticals.  Additional Singularity University faculty across multiple disciplines will also be participating.

FutureMed will be held at the NASA Ames Research Park in the heart of Silicon Valley on May 10-15th. Tuition includes meals, site visits  and lodging for participants on the NASA Research Park campus.  For more information and to register see http://FutureMed2011.com

ABOUT SINGULARITY UNIVERSITY

Singularity University (SU) is an interdisciplinary university whose mission is to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies in order to address humanity’s grand challenges. With the support of a broad range of leaders in academia, business, and government, SU hopes to stimulate groundbreaking, disruptive thinking, and solutions aimed at solving some of the planet’s most pressing challenges. SU is based at the NASA Ames campus in Silicon Valley. Corporate partners include Google,  Autodesk, The Kauffman Foundation for Entrepreneurship, and ePlanet Ventures, Nokia, and others.  For more information, go to www.singularityu.org and follow SU on www.twitter.com/singularityu and at www.facebook.com/singularityu.