Thomas Prescott: Gaps of Opportunity in Technology

The question was, we're playing in dentistry right now, in orthodontics, what do I think is going to be really prominent? You know, there's some obvious technology gaps. The traditional way medical devices have come about is a clinician that's really smart is saying there's got to be a better way to do this. This is an unmet patient need. People are dying or they certainly aren't getting well, or you have chronic diseases that just linger and you have engineers that are thinking the same thing and they get together and figure out a way. I think there is. So there's going to be convergence in the next five, 10, 15 years of I believe, today's medical device technology with an original clinical focus, patient problem, unmet need. And my hope is that with just as convergence has happened in some other areas of the technology world, multiple technologies getting together and shifting the curve, I think there's a great opportunity in medical devices sitting here today. The obvious places where innovation is rewarded are for the big disease states, you know, interventional cardiology, you know, and there's a whole class of problems from atrial fibrillation to still sudden cardiac death and things like that. There's huge problems with, you know, what's called copd, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is just a terrible way to waste away emphysema and all that. And we've got all the 60% of the population is going to wind up with type 2 diabetes. So what I'd say there are enormous problems and enormous opportunities. But my hope is that the traditional strength of medical devices will continue and we will bring a whole new way to get them to be more cost effective and be able to prove that the, the system can afford that intervention because it'll eliminate the need for, be able to prove that, eliminate the need for a long term chronic disease state. I would say go figure out what the most expensive problems are. Diabetes is clearly going to be one of them. Heart failure is going to be one of them. Sudden cardiac death and certainly cancers of all types have been around. We're still not smart enough about how to apply even the best in class drugs today. And I think there are a handful of really amazing companies in this valley working on very targeted therapeutics. You know, why should one class, the best class of treatments for breast cancer only work on, you know, 20% of the women and they endure all the side effects and yet they don't really work and six months later, you know, you've got bigger problems. We should know what will work, what therapeutic regimen will work on individual patients. So I. I'm actually. It's a hard time, but I'm very optimistic about the long term. If we don't kill the golden goose.