Dealbreaker Interview and Excerpt: Healthcare Hedgies

Dealbreaker has an interview and an excerpt from The End of Medicine.
Ex-hedge fund guy Andy Kessler, recently took time to talk to DealBreaker's Carolyn Okomo about his new book, The End of Medicine, a witty, engaging examination of the heathcare industry in the not-too-distant future.

DealBreaker: Finance and technology has sort of always been your thing. In The End of Medicine, you utilize your expertise to analyze the healthcare industry. Was this an easy transition to make?
Andy Kessler: I spent 20 years looking for ever cheaper silicon that could change industries. Over the last few years, I’ve gotten bored. Wi-Fi and Wikis are cool, but a little dull. So I started looking for something else besides computing and telecom and music and stock trading and banking that technology would surround, squeeze, suffocate old business models and reshape in its image. In the meantime, a friend was diagnosed with cancer, only because he banged his head on a mogul skiing and an X-Ray showed a tumor on his neck. And a brother-in-law had a heart attack in the middle of the night. I wondered if there was some technology that could find this stuff early, before it was life threatening. Us baby boomers (I’m a late boomer at 47) are entering that fragile age. So I started following doctors around, cardiologists, radiologists, researchers at cancer centers and universities, looking for silicon.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Excerpt: Healthcare Hedgies

I was eavesdropping on two guys I recognized from the past. One guy used to run some tech money, I think I remember him getting blown out in 2000 for being long and wrong. But he’s obviously still in the business. I strained to read his name tag, without luck. The other guy was a classic popcorn hedgie. Always showing up where the action in, figuring out some angle and trading rapid fire looking for returns.

“For me, it’s just one thing.”

“Market size?”

“Nope, these are all billion dollar markets.”

“Management?”

“Nope, they’re all trying to hit fish with a baseball bat.”

“True. So what is it? Balance sheet? Partners? Their logo?”

“You just play the trials. I don’t give a shit what drug it is, it almost always works the same way.”

“Get out of here.”

“No, check it out. Preclinical is bullshit, you could get gum off the sidewalk to reduce tumor size in rats. So what? Even Phase 1 is a load. They are mostly bent around to get decent enough results so you can get to Phase 2. I’ve tried to time Phase 1 announcements, but no dice. You always wait until you are about a third of the way into Phase 2, then you buy the shit out the stock."

Read the entire excerpt here.

Comments

[JJ]

"A team of systems engineers from the University of Sheffield (UK) is developing an intelligent computer system which imitates a doctor's brain to make treatment decisions for intensive care patients. The system will take some of the workload from emergency medical teams by monitoring patients' vital signs and then evaluating and administering the right amounts of different drugs needed - a job usually carried out by specialist medical doctors.

The team, led by Professor Mahdi Mahfouf in the University of Sheffield's Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, is pioneering the intelligent decision-support system which, in effect, duplicates the decision making processes of specialist medical doctors in Intensive Care Units (ITU).

The system models all the possible interactions between different drugs and patients' bodies, and then makes intelligent decisions about the best way to treat patients during heart bypass operations, and post-operatively in the ITU. This unique system can decide on the types and quantities of drugs to give to patients in a matter of seconds. This will help doctors provide effective treatment for patients, whilst allowing them to concentrate on as many other important tasks as possible.

Professor Mahdi Mahfouf of the University of Sheffield explains that it is the system's ability to learn, adapt, and make informed decisions which is unique: "This new system not only monitors and treats critical patients, but it can also learn from the experiences of medical staff, who can override the machine at any time. If overridden, the system assimilates the doctor's input and uses the new information to make decisions about similar cases in the future."

[JJ]

http://reports.discoverychannel.ca/servlet/an/discovery/1/20060725/060724_discovery_cyber_knife/20060725?hub=DiscoveryReport

[JJ]

http://oemagazine.com/newscast/2005/062305_newscast01.html

[elh]

I have just read the book and absolutely loved it. The fact that I will be graduating medical school soon this information throws a wrench into my training plans. My next question is what next? Where do we go knowing this info. What are your plans andy? Are you going to start a mutual fund for biotech or get into the market with a startup. What could a 25 year old do to help change the way silicon and medicine interact for the future (and make a buck off of it aslo)?

[JJ]

"What is your advice to physicians on adapting to this Brave New World? How does this differ by specialty? What should they do today vs. plan for in 10, 20, 30 years? Any advice for pre-meds and medical school students?

The end game is embedding the expertise of doctors into silicon and software, much as ATMs did to tellers, or switches did to operators or electronic trading did to specialists at the NY Stock Exchange. I would rather be on the side of those affecting the change than fight the change. There will be enormous career opportunities for those that understand the changes ahead. The days of the family physician aren’t over, but will be radically different. Think of the change that took place with cardiac surgeons once stent procedures became the norm vs. bypass. Then multiply that by 1000 to cover the rest of the industry. You can ride the wave or get knocked over by it."

http://robotfuturenews.blogspot.com/

[Brandon Bailey]

Pass the Virtual Scalpel, Nurse:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=/news/news_single.html?id%3D5819