The Personalized Medicine World Conference in Silicon Valley last week showcased huge opportunities for new advances in medicine and personalized health. What remained unclear was who will take the lead, what techniques or products will win, and whether the medical establishment will go along or stand in the way.
Folks in Silicon Valley are used to the fast pace and uncertainty that come along with exponentially growing technologies like those in the field of genomics, and it was easy to spot the venture capitalists in the crowd. The medical profession and the healthcare industry, on the other hand, are not quite as comfortable with accelerating change. That dynamic played out not only in the scheduled talks, but also informally among participants.
“It feels like the Internet conferences I went to in 1994,” said entrepreneur and investor Alex Jacobson of Aleo Capital — but it is also different, because “the Internet didn’t come out of a regulated industry.”
During her talk, investor and 23andMe board member Esther Dyson was asked “how to sway the FDA to empower consumers.” Her response was that the problem is “not so much the FDA as the medical establishment,” which she compared to officials in the Catholic Church who want to interpret everything for their patients.
[…]
Read more here.