Big Pharma's bet on Big Data creates opportunities and risks
26/01/2016 13:07
* Novartis plans to sell cloud-connected inhaler by 2019
* Part of companies' push into "Medical Internet of Things"
* Pharma and tech firms teaming up in hunt for Big Data
* But web-enabled devices present privacy and security risks
By John Miller
ZURICH, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Novartis NOVN.VX wants every
puff of its emphysema drug Onbrez to go into the cloud.
The Swiss drugmaker has teamed up with U.S. technology firm
Qualcomm QCOM.O to develop an internet-connected inhaler that
can send information about how often it is used to remote
computer servers known as the cloud.
This kind of new medical technology is designed to allow
patients to keep track of their drug usage on their smartphones
or tablets and for their doctors to instantly access the data
over the web to monitor their condition.
It also creates a host of "Big Data" opportunities for the
companies involved - with huge amounts of information about a
medical condition and the efficacy of a drug or device being
wirelessly transmitted to a database from potentially thousands,
even millions, of patients.
The potential scale of the so-called "Medical Internet of
Things" has not been lost on pharmaceutical and tech firms
around the world, both big companies hunting growth and smaller
ones looking to provide bespoke products and services.
It has created unlikely alliances.
Novartis' domestic rival Roche ROG.VX has also teamed up
with Qualcomm and Danish diabetes drugmaker Novo Nordisk
NOVOb.CO has partnered with IBM IBM.N on cloud-linked device
projects, for example, while healthcare device maker Medtronic
MDT.N is working with a U.S. data-analytics firm Glooko.
GlaxoSmithKline GSK.L , meanwhile, is in talks with
Qualcomm about a medical technology joint venture potentially
worth up to $1 billion, according to people familiar with the
matter.
However, with the opportunity comes risk.
Security experts warn that hacked medical information can be
worth more than credit card details on the black market as
fraudsters can use it to fake IDs to buy medical equipment or
drugs that can be resold, or file bogus insurance claims.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
estimates there are 35 million U.S. hospital discharges a year,
a billion doctor and hospital visits and even more
prescriptions, much of which is stored in cloud databases.
CLOUD CONCERN
Now the "Medical Internet of Things" is introducing more and
more web-connected devices into the equation and pushing even
more confidential patient data on to the cloud.
This is creating potential new opportunities for thieves
seeking to penetrate medical companies' security where they may
target names, birth dates, policy numbers, billing data and the
diagnosis codes needed to obtain drugs, say experts.
"The weakest link tends to be the medical device itself,"
said Rick Valencia, senior vice president of Qualcomm Life,
Qualcomm's four-year-old healthcare unit. "They weren't designed
with the idea in mind that they would be going over the network
and the information would be residing in cloud infrastructure."
Medtronic, the world's largest standalone medical device
maker, said in 2014 it lost patient records in separate
cyberattacks at its diabetes business.
"The more information, the easier identity theft is and the
more valuable the profiles that the hacker can sell to third
parties," said Erik Vollebregt, a lawyer in Amsterdam who
specialises in medical device cybersecurity and privacy.
He said it could also be possible for criminals to hack into
web-connected medical devices, and threaten the lives of
patients, to blackmail the manufacturer.
Despite no documented patient-endangering hacks, the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration warned last year an infusion pump
could be vulnerable to attack and asked healthcare providers to
stop using it. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N10B2MA
SMART LENS
Novartis aims to have its inhaler for chronic lung disease,
to be on the market by 2019. Other pharma-tech alliances include
Aerocrine ACNOY.PK and Microsoft MSFT.O , which are working
together on a cloud project to analyse data from allergy and
asthma patients.
Google GOOGL.O is, meanwhile, working with French
drugmaker Sanofi SASY.PA to collect and analyse information
from diabetes sufferers urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N1164ED. The U.S. tech giant also
has a partnership with Novartis to develop a smart contact lens
that can monitor diabetics' glucose levels.
All the companies involved in such projects say they are
going to extreme lengths to protect patients' data from hackers.
Philips PHG.AS has turned to San Francisco-based
identity-management software maker ForgeRock to keep data from
the Dutch company's medical devices from falling into the wrong
hands.
Software security expert Marie Moe, of Norway's SINTEF
scientific research foundation, said the wireless ports in the
pacemaker that keeps her heart beating left it vulnerable to
intrusion - but that she could not survive without the device.
"Wireless interfaces are a great benefit to certain patient
groups," she told Reuters. "But as a security researcher, I know
connectivity also means vulnerability."
(Additional reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago, Jim
Finkle in Boston and Ben Hirschler in London; Editing by Pravin
Char)
((J.Miller@thomsonreuters.com; +41 58 306 7734; Reuters
Messaging: j.miller.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: PHARMACEUTICALS DATA/