Healthcare Futurist: Evolving Technologies 'Re-Alter the Fabric of Humanity'

Evolving science and technology, including genomics and nanomedicine, will radically alter healthcare in a way that will "transcend biological limits that other generations have only dreamed of," Gregory Stock, one of the nation's pre- eminent thought leaders on genomics and biotech policy, told attendees at Medco Health Solutions, Inc.'s (NYSE: MHS - News) national Drug Trend Symposium, held here.

"We are unraveling and deciphering our biology and seizing control of the processes of life and of evolution itself," he said. "We're headed toward medicine that is much more predictive, much more personalized and much more oriented toward prevention. Health interventions will move from the science of curing us when we fall ill to the science of staying well all the time - that's what we really want."

Stock, director of the program on Medicine, Technology and Society at the UCLA School of Public Health, said the inevitable and increasingly rapid pace of technology-driven healthcare places us on the verge of a genomics revolution.

"The next frontier is not space, it's our own selves," he said. "We are reworking our biology. This will change the way we have children, change the way we manage our emotional states and will even alter our life spans. This will lead to questions of what it means to be a human being."

Stock was among the keynote speakers at Medco's Drug Trend Symposium, a three-day event in which more than 500 health care benefits managers from the public and private sectors explore innovative solutions to the challenges and opportunities of providing affordable and accessible prescription healthcare coverage for their beneficiaries.

The symposium, themed "Personalized Healthcare," examines the rapidly evolving science that is guiding the development of so-called designer drugs that will be individually tailored, administered and dosed based on a patient's specific genetic composition - with more reliable results, fewer side effects and holding the promise of treating afflictions years, perhaps decades, before the symptoms would even become apparent.

Calling the evolving science a "critical transition in the history of life," Stock acknowledged this would lead to issues over access to breakthrough treatments, costs, and an inevitable clash over values, religion and social stability.

"These developments are not only going to reshape medicine and healthcare, they are going to alter the fabric of humanity. People will be forced to make very difficult choices. But it's time to grow up - humanity is moving out of its childhood into its adolescence," he said, concluding that, "We have entered a new millennium and long before the next one arrives, future human beings will look back and see it not as a horrible moment in time when we trashed this environment, but will see it as a glorious moment that laid the very foundation for our future."

About Medco

Medco Health Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MHS - News) is a leader in managing prescription drug benefit programs that are designed to drive down the cost of pharmacy health care for private and public employers, health plans, labor unions and government agencies of all sizes, and for individuals served by the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Program. Medco's technologically advanced mail-order pharmacies and award-winning Internet pharmacy have been recognized for setting new industry benchmarks for pharmacy dispensing quality. Medco serves the needs of patients with complex conditions requiring sophisticated treatment through its specialty pharmacy operation, which became the nation's largest with the 2005 acquisition of Accredo Health, Incorporated. Medco is the highest-ranked pharmacy benefit manager on the 2006 Fortune 500 list, reporting revenues of nearly $38 billion in 2005. On the Net: http://www.medco.com.

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause results to differ materially from those set forth in the statements. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed, and actual results may differ materially from those projected. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward- looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Forward-looking statements in this press release should be evaluated together with the risks and uncertainties that affect our business, particularly those mentioned in the Risk Factors section of the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Read Full Story