It’s not a problem now for Ukrainians to join startup programs and participate in research to experience the new possibilities of medicine.
The chairman of the Darnitsa Group board of directors Dmytro Shymkiv asserted that during the panel discussion HealthTech Talk, organized by the European Business Association with the support of the pharmaceutical company Darnitsa, and Philips.
The intersection of technology, medicine, and pharmaceutics has influenced the rapid development of Health Tech and expanded the accessibility of prevention and treatment of many diseases.
Today, patients can choose among different ways to monitor their health biomarkers, which allows for a new segment to form – early diagnosis of morbidity.
“The next trend is the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. With its help, it would be possible to make accurate recommendations resulting from processing biodata and the accumulated knowledge. This may come in handy in cardiology, muscle condition, pressure parameters, and the like,” the specialist stated.
According to Dmytro Shymkiv, a huge database is about to be accumulated due to round-the-clock monitoring of the well-being of millions of people. It will be analyzed by artificial intelligence (AI) and this will open up new opportunities.
Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical company “Darnitsa” is studying the possibility of implementing AI to improve the functioning of the business as a whole, and to study the behavior and adherence of patients to treatment.
“We are considering the use of artificial intelligence in the field of in silico research. There are no relevant well-developed platforms in Ukraine yet, so we are studying the solutions that exist in the US. The second direction is the search for new ways to use the currently known molecules,” said the chairman of the Darnitsa Group board of directors.
The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the development of telemedicine. There are startups in Ukraine that invest in this area now. Telemedicine has grown by 35% -40% in the world due to the influence of the coronavirus crisis.
Personal contact with a doctor will soon become a thing of the past, and the initial reception “via a computer” will become an absolutely ordinary story. “This will help to solve another problem – the shortage of doctors, which is observed all over the world,” Dmytro Shymkiv predicts.
But a correct diagnosis is only half the battle. Patients often need long-term therapy or surgery. This is where, Dmytro Shymkiv believes, the future belongs to medical robots.
Among other important trends, the top manager named the so-called personalized drugs – systems for determining individual dosage and tracking dynamics of drug treatment, which, according to Shymkiv, are already being tested in Ukraine.
And another trend – the sphere of digiceuticals (digital therapeutics – Ed.), this is when in addition to drugs and procedures, patients are prescribed to use certain mobile applications. They are aimed, in particular, at tracking and correcting psychological conditions.
“One of the areas of implementation is PTSD, that is, a post-traumatic syndrome. Such applications are already being used today to treat, for example, neurosis,” said Shymkiv. There are apps that track your sleep or apps that use a specially designed game to provide a calming effect on the brain.
All top international pharmaceutical companies have digiceutical divisions. We are also looking into this, studying startups and opportunities for partnerships. We see ourselves as a company that soon will offer not only pills and infusions but also applications that can cure”.