The European Business Association, together with Darnitsa and Philips, held a panel discussion – HealthTech Talk. During the discussion, the chairman of the Darnitsa Group Board of Directors Dmytro Shymkiv emphasized that today the Ukrainians have an opportunity to take part in medical research within the framework of start-up programs. According to him, it’s become possible to prevent and treat a number of diseases thanks to intensive research in the Health Tech direction, which combined the developments in the field of technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals. Its main advantage is that the focus of attention is shifted to the early diagnosis of diseases.
In order to do this a number of specific instruments are used to monitor biomarkers of health status. In addition, the pharmaceutical industry is increasingly using the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning. These tools are used to process biological data. As a result, the patient receives recommendations regarding his individual course of treatment. Such techniques can be used in cardiology, as well as to check the condition of muscle tissue, monitoring blood pressure, etc.
Dmytro Shymkiv believes that constant monitoring of the well-being of a large number of people will allow creating voluminous databases, which will be processed by the artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Their implementation opens up new horizons for business. For example, ZAO Darnitsa is considering the feasibility of using artificial intelligence both to improve business processes in general, and to track how patients are ready to follow doctors’ prescriptions. In addition, the management of the pharmaceutical concern plans to use AI in in-silico research. The company’s specialists have already begun studying the experience accumulated in the United States in this area. Another innovative direction, where Darnitsa invests in development, is the study of the possibilities of using the already known molecules.
The pandemic has made significant changes in the field of healthcare. In particular, telemedicine is developing rapidly now, its market volume has grown by 35% -40%. Startups are showing great interest in this area. In the future, consultations with a doctor will take place online, which will, to a certain extent, solve the problem of lack of doctors in the world. There will be fundamental changes in the field of surgery, where many functions will be performed by medical robots.
The chairman of the Darnitsa Group Board of Directors also talked about such an innovative direction as personalized drugs. Within its framework, special systems are created to individually dose the drugs and track the dynamics of treatment. Such systems are already being tested in Ukraine. Among other promising areas Shymkiv also singled out digital therapeutics, namely the creation of mobile applications designed to monitor the correction process of certain conditions. They may be used in post-traumatic syndrome in particular. A certain amount of experience has already been accumulated in the use of such applications for treatment of neurosis. The function of the program is to track how calmly the patient sleeps and, if necessary, to calm him down with the help of special games.
According to Dmytro Syimkiv, many of the big names in the pharmaceutical world have created special departments that have tasks in the field of “digiceuticals”. The pharmaceutical concern “Darnitsa” is also actively exploring such opportunities and looking for partners to cooperate in this area. It is quite possible that in the near future the company will sell not only medicines, but also medical digital applications.