Oct. 6 Media Roundup

Last week our news coverage focused on exciting breakthroughs in the life sciences as well as the ongoing excitement and energy surrounding healthcare startups. Some of our news highlights included thoughts from a venture capitalist on how health startups can “do incredible things” by bringing transparency to the healthcare system, advice from an industry veteran for aspiring health entrepreneurs and updates on the progress being made with Parkinson’s disease and in oncology.

We were also excited about Michael Capone’s (our COO and the previous CIO at ADP) interview with Forbes last week and the insight he provided on the growing use of technology in the sciences. His thoughts? “In general, there's going to be a huge demand and use of technology in the sciences, and the two fields will only increasingly intersect. One of the biggest pointers towards this trend is how tech is being used in the life sciences. It used to be relied on to run operations and systems, but now it’s being used to solve problems. I’m sure we’ll only see more and more innovative uses of technology and big data to push the life sciences forward.”

Read more of Mike’s thoughts below as well as all of our news highlights from the past week. 

mHealth and Tech

• Kathy Giusti, the founder of Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, writes about the need for a coordination of electronic health records and greater access to data in order to pursue precision medicine. 
• New technology can disrupts industries, but the wearable trend doesn’t need to be seen as a threat. One industry veteran discusses how integrating new mHealth tech can help the traditional medical device industry thrive.  
• The founder of Junto Health, Doug Hayes, talks about his innovation program to solve pressing issues in the healthcare industry and why we’re living in the golden age of opportunity for health startups. 
• Venture capitalist John Doerr is excited about digital health and the possible disruption in the healthcare industry. Why? “Patients, providers and payers are not linked in any rational economic system.”
• A panel of women in tech at TechCrunch Disrupt, talk how they’ve taken action to fight for diversity in the tech industry. 
• After attending the Medicine X Conference focused on the intersection of medicine and technology, David Shaywitz shares some of his takeaways for aspiring health entrepreneurs.
• Our managing director of mHealth, Kara Dennis, published an article about the new possibilities for collecting data using wearable devices in clinical research.
• Forbes interviewed Mike Capone, our COO (and the former Global CIO of ADP), in an article about his passion for the life sciences, the evolving role of the CIO and much more.

Pharma and Life Sciences

• Remember the idea of sequencing 1000 human genomes? Well, the project is now complete (with the goals exceeded) and the results say a lot about the future of humanity.
• Did you know that men and women differ in how they experience diseases (especially lung cancer, Alzheimer’s and nicotine addiction) and respond to treatment? There’s lots of work to be done in the field of sex and gender-based medicine.
• Results show that we’re making progress with Parkinson’s and getting closer to a cure by focusing on alpha synuclein, a protein mainly found in nerve cells, and working on vaccines.
• Hospitalists, an emerging healthcare speciality, are one of the signs of innovation in the healthcare industry. The generalist physician takes over a patient’s care when admitted to a hospital and then returns the patient to their primary care doctor after being released from the hospital.
• The New York Times interviews Dr. Cori Bargmann, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University, and her work to better understand how the brain works.
• NASA discovers liquid water on Mars! 
• Genentech published a great cartoon featuring a potential breakthrough in oncology. In the video, a doctor explains how immunotherapy may affect the PD-L1/PD-1 pathway and enable the body to better detect and fight cancer.
• Breast cancer survivor Elizabeth Wurtzel writes about her experience with breast cancer from the BRCA mutation and argues that all Ashkenazi Jewish women should be tested for it to prevent breast cancer.

For more news coverage of the tech, mHealth, pharma and life sciences industries, be sure to follow us on Twitter and stay engaged in the conversation all week!