The Most Interesting Upcoming MedTech Inventions
As the medical field continues to be disrupted by new and exciting technology, the frontier of “medtech” is bursting with innovation, technology and optimization. Venture Capitalist Vinod Khosla has predicted, “By 2025, 80% of the functions doctors do will be done much better and much more cheaply by machines and machine learned algorithms.” Whether you agree with that prediction or not, we can all agree that the future of medtech is a truly exciting place to watch. Take a look at a few futuristic innovations that are happening right now in the field of medical technology.
3D Printed Medicine
Source: Washington Post
As I wrote about in this article on 3D printed medicine, when the US Food and Drug Administration opened to the doors for production of 3D printed pills, a whole new world opened up — with lots of fascinating implications!
Why is it important? 3D printing can allow for optimized medicine to be created. For example, the first 3D printed medicine that has been approved by the FDA is a pill from Aprecia Pharmaceuticals that treats seizures caused by epilepsy. The 3D printing process known as the “ZipDose Technology Platform” allows the physical pill to be made more porous than ordinary pills, allowing it to dissolve almost instantaneously when added to liquid. This makes it much easier to swallow, which is great for children who suffer from epilepsy.
What’s even more exciting is that 3D printing medicine allows for the possibility of creating drugs that are customizable for specific patients and users. No more of the “one-size fits all approach.” With 3D printing, each medicine dose can be specifically measured and then printed for individual users.
Alphabet/Google are targeting healthcare
Source: Wired.com
One major reason Google renamed itself Alphabet was that it allows the tech giant to expand into health care. This is great news for our health care system, which desperately needs a 2.0 version.
It’s not a big secret that Google has been going this way, the company has tested a pill that would detect cancer, has created a strategy to map all of the biomarkers in the human body and has teased the media with many other wild inventions that could change the face of health care as we know it. It’s also now a major stakeholder in Oscar (@oscar), the company revolutionizing health insurance.
Want to know more? Check out Larry Page’s memo on Alphabet here: https://abc.xyz/ Exciting stuff!
Would you trust a robot as your surgeon?
Technology is being created that could allow surgeons of the future to leave routine tasks like suturing, cutting and tissue removal to robots. A described application involved a robot cutting out cancerous materials after learning what to remove — with a 90% success rate, which is absolutely incredible. This would also go a long way to help with surgeon fatigue by having automated repetitive surgical tasks manned by robots.
Glucose reading contact lenses
Sounds bizarre at first, but it would be a major step forward for diabetes treatment to find a way to have blood glucose levels tested without having to prick yourself with a needle.
Using non-invasive miniaturized sensors, the “smart lens” measures glucose levels and relays them via a wireless chip. More exciting is that since this was introduced in mid-2014, the partnership between Novartis (thorough their eye care division, Alcon) and Google has expanded and they are developing smart lens technology for a range of ocular uses. This was even something Larry Page specifically made note of in his address when launching Alphabet.
Additionally, Novartis has also been racking up partnerships with companies like Microsoft and Qualcomm as it actively looks for new ways to incorporate medtech into its offerings.
Super tiny pacemakers that don’t need leads and a nanotech heart attack detector
Source: Qmed.com
Leads, the wires that connect pacemakers to the heart, have always been pretty problematic for pacemaker developers, so they have been working to create a solve for it.
Also in the works is a nanotechnology that can be implanted to detect the precursor of a heart attack. Still in early stages, the person wearing this device might get an alert on their smartphone, notifying them to call their cardiologist immediately. I’m excited to see how this technology evolves.
Incredibly small robots. So small they can travel in our blood.
Sounds a little bit like The Magic School Bus, but this is pretty incredible. Although “nanobots” are far from being used today, the future is coming where these tiny robots can function like our own white blood cells and destroy bacteria and other pathogens.
The microbots are apparently just a quarter of a millimeter and are powered by tiny piezoelectric motors.
Holographic images in hospitals
Hospital-acquired infections kill over 100,000 people a year — one area that can help dramatically is the ability to input data without actually touching physical devices such as keyboards, the mouse, etc. You can see the need for holographic keyboards in hospitals.
Additionally, I also met with a company called Micro Display USA at a recent tradeshow that was developing technology for doctors to use while reading images in the operating room that would allow hand gestures to replace mouse usage — to keep their hands sterile during the procedure. These are smart and innovative ways to reduce the spread of germs and hospital acquired infections.
Reviving “dead” hearts
Source: International Business Times
There is a shortage of hearts for transplants. That’s not news. But with a new technology being created, researchers are estimating that the availability of donor hearts could increase by 30%, if approved in the US. The technology, Organ Care System, allows the heart to stay pumping outside of the human body until it is ready for transplant.
Most hearts for transplant come from a brain dead patient whose circulatory system still works. This technology would “boost up the number of hearts available for transplant patients by not only reviving the donor heart of the brain dead patients, but by ‘reanimating’ the heart from a recently deceased patient.” This would allow more hearts the ability to be transplanted.
3D Printed body parts
Truly amazing and inspirational things are being done with 3D printed body parts and giving people a chance to run, walk, high five, thumbs up and smile again… These stories just never get old to me and it’s something I’ve written about extensively. It’s truly heartwarming to see how 3D printing and technology continues to improve people’s lives.
Augmenting Human Capabilities
Source: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
The technology to control a prosthetic limb with your mind alone is coming. It’s been demonstrated since 2011 to be possible and, if they can find the right clinical transition partners, it may become a reality for these patients.
Did I miss anything? Would love to hear your thoughts!
— DG
CEO @dginteractive || Entrepreneur || @thedavegrossman
