Dramatic changes ahead in medicine, speakers tell Biotech 2004

BT Catalyst,  July-August, 2004  

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COMING DEVELOPMENTS IN SYSTEMS BILOGY will bring a new era of "predictive, preventive and personalized" medicine within the next three decades that will extend human lifespan by 10 to 20 years, a founding father of the biotechnology industry told an overflow audience of North Carolina biotechnology executives in May.

"We stand at an incredible point in time with biology and medicine," said Dr. Leroy Hood, co-founder and president of the Seattle-based

Institute for Systems Biology. "The future is unbounded, and systems biology will be a real driver to catalyze other disciplines."

Hood also said 4,000-fold advancements in DNA sequencing technology in the next decade will give patients their own genetic blueprints within an hour and for less than $1,000. Also, whereas today a doctor visit typically yields about two dozen clinical measurements of health from a blood draw, future visits will yield 10,000 data points, based on genetic profiles and other biological information, he said.

These developments will have profound social, economic and medical implications for older populations who will live longer, he said. "We're absolutely unprepared," he said, because doctors today are trained to deal with disease systems, not wellness systems.

Hood made these bold predictions at Biotech 2004, the 13th annual biotechnology conference, sponsored by the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the North Carolina Biosciences Organization (NCBIO) and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). An estimated 900 people attended the conference May 26 and 27 in Durham.

Systems biology is the interplay of biology, technology and computation in understanding interrelationships between genes, proteins, cells, and systems in the body. Hood's keynote address, "Systems Biology: Changing Biology, Medicine and Industry," was amplified by two other keynote speakers.

"We are facing a time where emerging sciences can transform medicines and technology," said Dr. Ralph Snyderman, chancellor for health affairs at Duke University and president and CEO of Duke University Health System. "The rise of risk assessment and prediction in medicine will empower people to know barriers to their health and how to get around these barriers."

In the future, Snyderman said, a patient's unique genetic profile at birth will be used to assess susceptibility to various diseases. That assessment will let doctors develop a personal health plan for each patient so the patients can avoid getting those diseases.

G. Steven Burrill, CEO and founder of San Francisco-based merchant bank Burrill & Company, said systems biology will change the practice of health care to a "wellness-oriented system that focuses on the 90 percent of people who are healthy versus the 10 percent who are sick," benefiting patients, doctors and insurance payers alike. Everybody wins," he said. "We're going to get there in our lifetime."

Burrill predicted that the increasing value of diagnostics in the world of predictive, preventative, and personalized medicine described by Hood will make diagnostics worth more than therapeutics in the future. He said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is embarking on a dramatic change, and in the future "drugs may be approved only if they have a diagnostic link" that eliminates patients who don't respond to the treatment or are in danger from drug side effects. He called the marriage of therapeutics and diagnostics "theranostics."

Commenting on the current business climate for biotechnology, Burrill said capital markets are largely driving the life science industry today and, despite major challenges, the industry is fundamentally strong with a deep pipeline of new drugs, an improving regulatory environment, and an expanding market for health care worldwide due to aging populations.

By and large it's a fabulous year to be in this business," he said.

COPYRIGHT 2004 North Carolina Biotechnology Center
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning