Leap year
Hello dear reader and a warm welcome to the second quarter of the millennium. How on earth did we get here? Who knows, but proceed we must.
Each year in our industry we are duty bound to leap into whatever happens to be in front of us. We somersault or we tentatively edge into the transformational avenues and, indeed, life-affirming alleyways of the life sciences. Lives are at stake and we run towards the danger – it was always thus.
This time, however, there seem to be greater possibilities and – equally – increased jeopardy. A leap of faith is necessary; a leap into the unknown is compulsory (cue heartbeat sound effect, accompanied by tension music).
With digital medicine and AI drug development comes great curiosity but, by incorporating it, by empowering it, we must accept greater responsibility. Crikey, this is deep for the first edition – but, make no mistake, our laser focus, especially when it comes to the neo-med universe, is non-negotiable.
Needing to trusting the robots is a real thing to wrestle with, and it’s a challenge that is never ending or beginning (on an ever-spinning wheel), such is the human nature woven into the fabric of machine learning.
And, in that respect, this latest plot point in the pharma/healthcare narrative is precisely the same as the first laboratory, the first therapies, the first practitioners, the first national health service. It is nothing if not a projection of ourselves – for worse or for better.
Don’t have nightmares,
John Pinching
editor
