Health and wellness technologies have the potential to enable the steady growth of novel diagnostic and therapeutic drugs capable of eliminating a plethora of chronic and acute diseases. With the convergence of predictive analytics and mined genetic data, diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities will improve significantly.
By upgrading and ingraining the data analytics and genetic information into the health care system, accurate diagnostics will become a reality—and have significant implications for patient care.
“Top Health and Wellness Technologies in 2015,” a report from Frost & Sullivan, a company that provides health care market research, finds high throughput gene sequencing (HTGS), antibody therapeutics, biomarkers, cancer immunotherapy, targeted drug delivery, regenerative medicine, point-of-care diagnostics, gene therapy, synthetic biology, and molecular farming are the leading health and wellness technologies transforming health care.
In the rapidly growing cancer immunotherapy segment, there are close to 120 therapeutic solution developers working on breakthrough technologies to boost products for numerous types of cancer. These technologies are set to reduce the potential side effects people face with conventional treatment strategies.
“The high cost of cancer drugs has made it difficult for a large majority of the global population to access these medications, reasonable pricing of new drugs will be important,” says Madhumitha Rangesa, Frost & Sullivan TechVision senior research analyst. “While this will increase the adoption of cancer immunotherapy and certain other life sciences technologies, the competitive landscape will pose challenges for market participants in these segments.”
In the HTGS space, price is less of an issue as the cost of next-generation sequencers (NGS) has plummeted.
Additionally, major developments to improve the accuracy and speed of devices, as well as emerging business models for analyzing raw data output from NGS, will heighten the application potential of HTGS.
“As HTGS adoption rates increase due to the rising demand for personalized genomics and point-of-care diagnostics allowing on-the-spot sequencing, more investors will get involved, driving the entire industry forward,” says Rangesa.
“Furthermore, the development of customized diagnostics panels, exome sequencing, and whole genome sequencing will make a huge difference to the health care industry. Data produced through all of these platforms will create new markets in the bioinformatics space that could lead to extensive involvement with software companies.”
Overall, trends across the 10 key technologies of 2015 are guiding the entire health care industry by positively impacting government legislation, global and regional health care expenditure, and the operation of patient-centric care facilities.
Top Health and Wellness Technologies in 2015 identifies and profiles 10 technologies expected to shape the health and wellness industry. The list includes technologies that are already in the market as well as recently commercialized technologies. The research throws light on technology capability, maturity, global research intensity, adoption over the short and medium terms, and funding activities.
The bottom line: The pace of change in the health care industry is accelerating—and health care providers, including medical practices, should be prepared.
