MEDICAL ELECTRONICS
Pharma and nanoelectronics: A market of opportunity
Prof. Liesbet Lagae (imec/KU Leuven) explores the continued evolution of the medical sector and the of role nanoelectronics processes. Think of advanced
Paradigm shift in the pharmaceutical sector, moving to a patient-centric industry (source: Arthur D. Little, The Future of Healthcare 2017)
W
ith the COVID-19 pandemic still accelerating across the globe, it is painfully clear that the
pharmaceutical sector is failing to find fast, reliable solutions for diagnostics, prevention, and treatment, that are deployable at scale. This issue is not new, nor uniquely linked to COVID-19. It's a fundamental, widespread shortcoming that only became more visible by the augmenting effect of the pandemic. For at least two decades, the pharma sector has made increasing investments in R&D yet has produced drastically fewer new molecules. The shortage of good medicines in the pipeline underlies many of the other challenges pharma faces, including its increasing expenditure on sales and marketing, competition from start-ups, deteriorating financial performance, and damaged reputation.
Today, pharma’s challenge is to develop new medicines that can prevent or cure diseases that are currently considered incurable. On top of this challenge, healthcare is becoming increasingly personalised. We are moving away from 'one size fits all' diagnostics and medicines and moving towards increased attention on each individual patient's context and (genetic) disposition. In other words, if 'Mary' gets cancer, she will no longer be given a standard cocktail of chemical and radiation
48 MAY 2021 | ELECTRONICS TODAY
therapy, but instead, she’ll receive a fine- tuned treatment optimised to what will most likely work for her individual situation. Think COVID-19 versus baby Pia. COVID is an acute urgency that hit all of us globally in a similar way. Baby Pia, the baby diagnosed with a rare spinal disease, who needed a very (€1.9m) expensive medication in order to live, embodies the need for more personalised healthcare and the human right to receive medical treatment, regardless of how rare (and therefore economically uninteresting to pharma) your condition might be. By using the traditional discovery and development processes, even when multiplying them thanks to sudden (crisis- inspired) investments as we see now with COVID, there is little reason to think pharma's underlying efficacy and productivity will magically rise. An additional innovative pathway should focus on accelerating R&D with technology and operational efficiencies, through extended collaboration with other biopharma companies, smaller biotech companies, research institutions, and academia.
Nanoelectronics and artificial intelligence to the rescue To increase R&D efficiency at lower cost, the pharma industry needs to transit towards less hands-on and more automated
nanoelectronics lab-on-chip prototypes that are capable of running an unprecedented number of tests in parallel on a scalable miniaturised device. Or imagine combining multiple types of data gathered at different places in the discovery process to create a knowledge database from which advanced data algorithms can identify and prioritise candidates more optimally and dynamically throughout the process. And how about artificial organs? Or more individualised patient models supported by AI and deep learning? Thanks to these advances, a higher throughput can be obtained in screening and making the right selection of products that will hold up during consecutive trials. In the context of these clinical trials, a whole new set of challenges pops up. Recruiting and screening patients is already a time-consuming process. In fact, a 2018 study by CB insights shows that 80 percent of clinical trials fail to meet enrollment times because of the process alone. Then once they finally get started, following up on patients' compliance with, and responses to the protocols are also cumbersome activities. Often, they still involve error-prone written diaries and are conducted in expensive, highly controlled environments. To top it off, third parties increasingly require undisputable proof of efficacy for a drug to be reimbursed. The pharma industry is responding by pursuing trials that collect real-world evidence in the participants' daily environment. Wearables and AI-driven data analytics are two of the key enabling technologies behind these new types of trials. Although both have moved beyond the hype and gadget stage, they still face significant reluctance from the pharma industry. The next generation of point- of-care sensors and digital biomarkers currently under development will add a new layer of information that might make clinical trials and individualised trajectories even more precise. So, once the sector overcomes its fears, it will notice that these technologies enable an acceleration of products successfully coming out of trials and moving
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