Healthcare

GLOBAL INVESTOR 2.12 — 21
Photos: Thomas Eugster | Cédric Widmer
we model physiological interactions and
mental
components of the organism.
What will the virtual patient look like?
Denis Hochstrasser: There are
USA, uses personal health
information to visualize three-dimensional,
interactive anatomical models of individuals
that run on the iPad or iPhone. Nhumi,
a spin-off of IBMware
plug-ins for displaying virtual human
physical exercise and having your avatar
your medical history and genomic makeup.
The virtual patient is actually part of
a larger project called ITFoM (Information
Tech nology Future of Medicine) that is
competing for funding from the European
Hans Lehrach: In Europe, we spend
around 11% of GDP on medical treatment.
of aging societies. Moreover, people
at the same time they stopped working
under Bismarck. And as we are finding out,
longer living does not necessarily translate
into healthier living. We have a very strong
economic incentive to try and change
the healthcare system.
It’s going to take an enormous amount
of computing power, isn’t it?
Hans Lehrach:
of a weather report for 500 million Europeans.
We know that, for every patient coming
tion
of the capacity of a nuclear reactor.
It comes down to how much extra information
and computing power will save you
how much on the medical side.
What do the skeptics say?
Denis Hochstrasser: They say, with
some reason, that the greatest advance in
modern medicine was hand washing. Losing
would cutting down on alcohol and giving up
smoking. Not ITFoM. But the two are not
mutually exclusive. People do not see themselves
as they are. With a medical avatar that
evolves as a person gets older, they might.
Hans Lehrach: We are currently
per year, generating many more data than
Hans Lehrach
we did in the entire ten years of the genome
project. In my view, that information
than the 28% we have in clinical practice.
cine
now. It’s clear that our models initially
expect from ITFoM?
Hans Lehrach:
tualize drug development. For example,
pharma companies could take drugs
that have failed in clinical trials and get
patients that actually respond to them.
That would not just save costs and reduce
risks. It would also save time. Look, a drug
patent lasts 20 years. If you can cut the
time to development, which typically is 19
years, to 6 using this type of virtualization,
What does ITFoM mean for ordinary
humans?
Hans Lehrach: If you give people a
computer model of themselves that allows
them to test what will happen if they don’t
jog regularly and watch their diet, that’s
relevant to them. Empowering people to
have more control over themselves is a positive
development and potentially more
far-reaching than making classical medicine
more efficient.
example of you doing rounds at the hospital,
Denis Hochstrasser: Instead of me waiting
for the computer to download PDF files,
it shows me an image of the patient and
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a toe infection. I go to each of these alerts,
the proper therapies with confidence
edge
and all the knowledge we have
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Sounds useful.
Denis Hochstrasser: