Musings From the Digital Medicine Showcase

Last month I had the opportunity to present Novaseek’s CDNR platform at the second annual Digital Medicine Showcase. This event is a part of the Biotech Showcase event that takes place during the J.P. Morgan Annual Healthcare Conference. Digital Medicine Showcase brings together innovative companies and gives them a forum to present their clinically impactful digital technologies to an audience of venture capital and private equity investors, pharmaceutical executives and professional advisors. I was so thrilled to share our approach to providing real world data-enriched biospecimens for translational medicine, clinical feasibility and observational studies. It was Novaseek’s second year at Digital Medicine Showcase, and we were able to detail updates to our CDNR technology that we recently announced. We also were excited to share some of the use cases and examples of studies that Novaseek currently is enabling for our pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostic customers. 

Even over the past year, digital medicine has gained a lot of traction. It was evident in the expansion of Digital Medicine Showcase conference, from an afternoon in a single room last year, to a two-day event this year. Thirty companies presented, with offerings ranging from live coaching, to virtual reality, to digital treatments for enhanced outcomes, to gaming apps, in areas as diverse as smoking cessation, to mental health, to diabetes. The industry has advanced rapidly in the past five years, but the feeling is that the next five years will be even more critical in determining the collaborations and partnerships that will shift medical care from a position of reaction to one of proactive health management.

Advances in technology have been a driving force in this evolution, particularly with the transition to EHRs and the technological ability to integrate records from multiple sources and to manipulate and analyze large volumes of data. Such advances in technology make our CDNR offering possible, enabling us to connect researchers with real world data and patients in an entirely new way. CDNR offers researchers the ability to procure human biospecimens enriched with data from EHRs, including lab test results, medical history, medication information – and to follow patients prospectively during the course of the disease or treatment. CDNR also offers population analytics features that facilitate insights into the effect of various co-morbidities or drug classes on the progression of disease. Armed with this extensive data and the ability to incorporate these data-laden human biospecimens into their work, researchers can develop more effective and precise options for patients in need.
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We are only beginning to tap the power of real world clinical data for research. As we continue this trend, patients will be the true beneficiaries of these advances as scientists are able to develop better medicines sooner, ultimately improving the lives of patients and their families.