The Rise Of Direct To Consumer Precision Health

Healthcare trends are already moving us toward earlier intervention. Recent advancements in technology and science help medical practitioners deliver more precise and personalized health insights to patients. In the last 15 years, the cost of mapping a human genome has fallen from $100 million to below $1,000, allowing the use of data from patient DNA to become an increasingly viable method for providing accurate, actionable recommendations before symptoms occur. Many researchers believe that within ten years, all medical records will include DNA profiles.

Moreover, sensors have become smaller, enabling remote diagnostics and monitoring (think Apple Watch or Fitbit). Advancements in artificial intelligence are driving innovation in healthcare as well, helping companies harness increasingly available data to offer enhanced insights to patients. Viome, for instance, is a subscription-based service that sends microbiome testing kits to consumers and leverages AI algorithms to provide food recommendations based on the consumer’s microbe composition (Viome closed a $25 million Series B round in April 2019, including funding from Marc Benioff). This proactive and tech-enabled individualized approach to medicine is known as precision health.

The full Forbes article can be viewed at this link.