Bur­dened with for­mi­da­ble chal­lenges, such as in­con­sis­tent ac­cess and de­ploy­ment of care in ad­di­tion to the un­sus­tain­able cost of care, the US health­care sys­tem has laid the ground­work for the use of dig­i­tal tools to re­fresh the prac­tice of med­i­cine. In re­cent years, in ad­di­tion to the pen­e­tra­tion of tech gi­ants in­to the realm of health­care (cue Google, Ap­ple), ma­jor drug­mak­ers have al­so em­braced the sig­nif­i­cance of these tech­nolo­gies, hir­ing chief dig­i­tal/tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cers to ush­er in the era of telemed­i­cine, wear­ables, cloud com­put­ing, ma­chine learn­ing and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence. On Tues­day, France’s Sanofi said its chief med­ical of­fi­cer Ameet Nath­wani would al­so serve as the com­pa­ny’s first chief dig­i­tal of­fi­cer (CDO). Sanofi fol­lows its peers in mak­ing the move. Last year, Pfiz­er and Mer­ck named their CDOs, while No­var­tis and GSK an­nounced sim­i­lar ap­point­ments in 2017. Nath­wani, who was hired by Sanofi as chief med­ical of­fi­cer in 2016, is now al­so charged with in­te­grat­ing Sanofi’s ar­se­nal of med­i­cines with dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and ink­ing dig­i­tal part­ner­ships. The promise of dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy to po­ten­tial­ly de­moc­ra­tize med­i­cine, en­abling in­di­vid­u­als and re­searchers to gen­er­ate re­al-world da­ta, is an­oth­er rea­son dig­i­tal health tech­nolo­gies are so com­pelling. In the UK, for­mer health sec­re­tary Je­re­my Hunt com­mis­sioned Cal­i­for­nia-based Er­ic Topol, a car­di­ol­o­gist, au­thor and dig­i­tal med­i­cine re­searcher, to car­ry out an in­de­pen­dent re­view in­to the dig­i­tal train­ing needs of NHS staff. The re­port was re­leased on Mon­day, de­tail­ing the promise of ge­nomics, AI, ro­bot­ics and dig­i­tal med­i­cine in the pre­ven­tion, man­age­ment and treat­ment of dis­ease, and high­light­ed the im­por­tance of ed­u­cat­ing the NHS work­force of these ad­vances. Na­ture too has rec­og­nized the trans­for­ma­tive po­ten­tial of dig­i­tal med­i­cine. In an ar­ti­cle en­ti­tled “Dig­i­tal med­i­cine, on its way to be­ing just plain med­i­cine,” the jour­nal sig­nalled the launch of its peer-re­viewed jour­nal fo­cused specif­i­cal­ly on the dig­i­ti­za­tion of med­i­cine last year. Pho­to: Ameet Nath­wani. SANOFI
Health care company Sanofi has become the latest to appoint a chief digital officer (CDO). The French company has named Ameet Nathwani, its chief medical officer, as CDO to integrate the firm’s products with digital technology. The appointment was announced after the launch of the findings of an NHS review into the use of digital technology in health provision, which highlight the need for NHS staff to be trained in such developments as AI and robotics. Pfizer, Merck, Novartis and GSK have already named CDOs.