Future Health Care and Pharma Keynote Speaker
What will be the longer term impact of COVID on the future of health care? People often say to me that the answer to new viral pandemics is to develop vaccines. This is clearly nonsense since it takes months to develop a vaccine, months more to test, years to vaccinate the world at vast cost, and the vaccine itself may not produce long term immunity, or may be overtaken by new mutations.
That is why for two decades now I have been warning of the need to develop next-generation antivirals.
We still don't have a single antiviral today that is as powerful and effective as penicillin was against bacteria when first discovered over 80 years ago.
But one benefit of vaccines is buying us time to learn about new viruses so we can reduce death rates with better therapy.
Research falls mainly into three areas: antivirals, immune modulators and drugs to prevent blood clotting. Here are some examples - this area of medical research is growing at astonishing speed..
* "How AI Will Change your life - A Futurist's Guide to a Super-Smart World" - Patrick Dixon's latest book on AI is published in September 2024 by Profile Books. It contains 38 chapters on the impact of AI across different industries, government and our wider world, including impact of AI on future of health care.
Read more: New therapies for COVID and impact on future healthcare. Why effective, low-cost antiviral treatments will be more important than COVID vaccines in longer term. Truth about global fight against new viruses each year. Future of healthcare keynote speaker