September 23, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Biogen’s Andi Karaboutis, vice president of technology, is looking to drive the company beyond pharmaceutical development to include manufacturing of medical devices.
In an interview with Forbes, Karboutis, who came over to Biogen from Dell, Inc. about a year ago, outlined some of the goals the company is pursuing, including wearables, consumables, ingestables and data analytics. Karboutis told Forbes Biogen is looking to “disrupt the business in a positive way, as well as potentially the whole biotech industry.”
“They recognized that technology is not a long pole in the tent, but something that has progressed to the point where it can help this industry through some of the data, Big Data, analytics, and technology,” Karboutis said.
Data gathering is an important tool for drug companies eying treatments for a plethora of diseases. A massive amount of patient data would allow the companies to develop therapies and drugs that target disease at its source, which is part of the push toward precision medicine. The raw data will allow research scientists to study their genetics, environmental information and microbial information to learn how to individualize medical care. Earlier this year, Biogen partnered with PatientsLikeMe to explore ways to use wearable activity trackers with multiple sclerosis patients to gather data about patient activity, which will be able to help physicians with treatment options. The majority of MS patients deal with mobility issues.
Karboutis said she was chosen for this role due to her career outside of the biotech industry. “…obviously, being from Dell, I brought technology with me from a capability perspective of the industry, to bring somebody in with different thinking, fresh thinking, etc., and help be unencumbered in how do we apply certain capabilities to this business,” she said.
To help facilitate the new directive, Karboutis said the company tapped six people from its leadership team to drive the new initiatives. But, Karboutis said the company is not going about this transition alone. She said the company is “pursuing partnerships with the best and brightest in the U.S. and abroad.”
Extrapolating health data from wearables is a booming new industry with multiple companies getting in on the action. In August, clothing manufacturer Ralph Lauren has launched the PoloTech Smartshirt that combines fashion and technology to allow wearers to measure their heart rates and calories burned while wearing it. The shirt features sensory receivers woven into the fabric that provides real time data, such as heart rate, stress levels, breathing levels, energy output and more, to allow wearers to maximize their workouts. Additionally, the shirt will record the number of calories burned and the number of steps taken during a workout.
In April, Apple unveiled ResearchKit, a software framework designed for medical and health research that helps doctors, scientists and other researchers gather data more frequently and more accurately from participants using mobile devices. The app was met with enthusiasm as more than 60,000 iPhone users signed up with the app. The first research apps developed using ResearchKit study asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. According to Apple, the open source framework allows any medical researcher to take advantage of the initial modules in ResearchKit to study health and wellness and better understand disease. Developers can also build new modules based on the open source code and contribute them to ResearchKit. The initial customizable modules address the most common elements found in research studies—participant consent, surveys and active tasks.
In July, GlaxoSmithKline and Purdue Pharmaceuticals announced they would be using Apple’s ResearchKit to integrate the information into clinical trials.
Will the Presidential Election Change the Face of the Way Prescription Drugs are Sold in the United States?
Although Turing Pharmaceuticals announced it will revise its 5,000 percent increase of a newly acquired drug to treat toxoplasmosis, the move sparked a public outcry that resulted in one presidential candidate calling for price caps on prescription medication.
In August, Turing Pharmaceuticals acquired toxoplasmosis drug Daraprim from Impax Laboratories and increased the price of the medication from $13.50 per tablet to $750 per tablet, a 5,000 percent increase. Turing Chief Executive Officer Martin Shkreli defended the increase, saying the revenues would be used to subsidize new research into treatments for toxoplasmosis. Has since said the company will reduce the price, but did not specify what the price would be.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said if elected she would cap monthly out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs at $250 to avoid “price gouging.” Her comment sent the stock market into a state of flux, with several large companies seeing a drop in their stock of up to 10 percent. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index dropped 4.4 percent and the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF dropped by 6 percent.
BioSpace wants to know what you think: Will the presidential election change the face of the way prescription drugs are sold in the United States?
