The FDA is Ripe for Innovation
In the past few days I have been thinking about FDA and what it would mean if someone like Balaji S. Srinivasan is appointed as head. I also had a great discussion about this topic over dinner with Alex Zhavoronkov last Friday. I don’t have time for a long essay today, but I will briefly share my main thoughts.
Many of us computer scientists, geneticists, professors and entrepreneurs feel very optimistic about the long-term future of health care.
The 4 main elements of that future will likely be:
1.
Artificial intelligence integrating medical data and aiding doctors to make medical diagnosis much more accurate, easier, and catering to the individual patient as a whole rather than as an isolated set of symptoms. Eventually, in a more distant future AI will replace much of today’s doctor’s work.
2.
Telemedicine, and the mobile sensors, internet infrastructure (“internet of things”), and artificial intelligence tools that enable telemedicine and connect the patient with a much more easily accessible health care system.
3.
Computational genomics and its promise to individualize treatment for patients and for conditions such as cancer. Aka precision medicine.
4.
Empowerment of the patient, which also means a great responsibility given to the patient. That will imply a move from the current cautious environment where fears of data privacy as well as false medical advice make all kinds of health care entities find reasons not to do things, to a more innovative environment where the patient will have access to options such as sharing their data as well as getting information in a less regulated way.
A number of books that came out recently, such as Healthcare Disrupted, Patient as CEO, and The Patient Will See You Now, point to this potential future.
However, the current health care system is a bit sclerotic and slow to change. The current regulatory system may have been appropriate for some time in the past, but today in many ways it is slowing progress; given the promise of vastly improved health care, such slowness is hurting more than helping the patients that the regulatory and health system seek to protect.
Balaji would be the ideal person to innovate and help reform our current regulatory system. His background is precisely in artificial intelligence, computational genomics, and their application to the health care system. He founded Counsyl and in a superb way navigated the current health care and regulatory system to bring cheap and accurate Mendelian prenatal testing (based on computational genomics and AI) to millions of couples. And in terms of his convictions, he is passionate about individual freedom and choice, which is precisely what the “patient first” environment will bring. Overall, he is one of the most brilliant and innovative individuals I know.
Looking at items 1–4 that I listed above, Balaji is precisely the person to bring positive change to our current regulatory environment.
I saw some tweet that if Balaji is head of FDA, it will add years of expected lifetime to Americans. I think that’s just about right, conservatively speaking.
I guess I did write an essay after all.
