The class started with a very interesting video on how the future of the health care industry might be.
Is this really possible? As mentioned by prof, everything is possible. With someone having this vision would only mean that someone is trying to make that vision work. If the health care sector really was to become what it is in the video, it would definitely create a lot of convenience for the health care sector and also the stakeholder of the health care sectors (eg. patients, doctors). despite that, i feel that it would still take some time for this technology to be implemented. I do hope that we can see this in the near future and not just in the health sector. This bring us to a question.
Cost.
A question that was raised in class with regards to cost was whether implementing this technology will be more cost effective or cost ineffective.
The implementation of such technology would definitely cost a bomb. However, i feel that over time, the cost of the infrastructure can be spread across the years. In the long term, the cost of the infrastructure can be covered by the fees of the patients, without increasing on the price of the consultation/cost of drugs.
With regards to health care, as mentioned by prof, preventing the people from falling sick would be a better method rather than nursing them back to health after they fall sick. And here comes the introduction to nutraceutical. (nutraceutical = nutrients + pharmaceutical). As compared to pharmaceutical measures, i feel that nutraceutical would be more effective simply because it cleverly makes use of the nutrients that can be found in the food that we consume.
Today's class was exceptionally interesting because there were alot of insights with regards to health care and biobusiness (thanks to prof being a doctor. =))
Moving on to the presentations of the day. We started out with Evangeline who asked a very debatable question.
One of her discussion question with regards to the article was whether developing countries will be able to get the pharmaceutical industry to give up their patent rights for cancer drugs (and the accompanying profits)?
My answer to this question is that i dont think the pharmaceutical industry would give up their patent rights, (unless they are still able to earn from that, maybe with the government making compensation to them), else, there will not be any incentive for innovation. Put it this way, if the developing countries win, the big pharmas would not want to produce new innovations (due to the lack of incentives), and if the pharmaceutical industry wins, it would mean that the developing countries would be deprived of the drugs which may in turn increase in the death tolls which could have been prevented. Thus the best way would to create a winwin situation that can satisfy both the developing countries and the pharmaceutical industy.
Another interesting topic was on pace makers, presented by TeWei (YAY!MY GROUP MATE!)
anyways, i find this presentation very informative, as previously i did not even know about what a pace maker is. But from his presentation i learnt that this device is really important to those people with heart problems. And as for tewei's discussion, on whether mankind would misuse this technology. i doubt so. there might be people who have got nothing to do and jus wanna inplant the pacemaker in their body for prevention's sakes. but that should just be the minority.
I would rate the class a 9/10 as i feel that the topic for the day is very interesting, and prof has provided insightful opinions on the biobusiness, and the presentations were very informative and taught me alot.
=)
ciaos!
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