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Published on November 12, 2007

"Philips is increasingly investing in healthcare. We provide integrated solutions across the entire cycle of care," Paul Smit, senior vice president for strategy and business development, said last week.

"We are prominent in diagnosis and treatment in the hospital, and developing activities in other phases of the care cycle. We are also building a telemonitoring business exploiting our long history in consumer businesses," he said.

The company is looking to the future with extensive research on nano-medicine technology, which will revolutionise diagnostics as well as medical imaging.

Today's scientific challenge is to achieve an accurate understanding of disease at the molecular level and to combine this knowledge with appropriate "bio-marker detection" technologies. Philips is targeting development of new diagnostic tests that can be performed at the patient's bedside, not only in hospital laboratories.

With new insights into genetics, molecular biology and biochemistry, together with innovative technologies, Philips is creating groundbreaking applications. It is applying nanotechnology from the semiconductor industry to medical diagnostics.

Early identification of disease-specific molecules or molecular imbalances - the so-called "biomarkers" of disease - is becoming a powerful tool for diagnosis. It has the potential to reveal the presence of disease before patients suffer symptoms and it can also be used to measure the progress and efficacy of therapy.

"We'll be able to understand the cause and detect the disease at the molecular level, making tests earlier, faster and more accurate" Smit said. This will convert today's paradigm of "symptomatic medicine", in which patients have to wait to fall ill to get treated, into "early diagnosis", an ideal preventive healthcare system, where a person can be healed before falling ill.

Next-generation diagnostic tests will be able to perform DNA analysis and identify genetic predisposition to certain diseases, gene mutations associated with the onset of cancer, or the presence of foreign DNA from bacteria or viruses.

The wide-ranging use of next-generation diagnostic tests will improve decision-making at virtually every step in the patient-care cycle, from routine screening right through to treatment and chronic-disease management.

"Nanotechnology is about to change the face of today's medical treatment," Smit said.

Nanotechnology will enable alternatives to surgery through a new system of targeted drug delivery. Nano-bubbles can be filled with drugs, which can be locally released with an ultrasound pulse. For instance, an anti-cancer drug can be incorporated into such bubbles that are injected in the blood vessel and subsequently released only at the location of a tumour. This will enable a more effective therapy at higher local dosages and with fewer side-effects than by taking medication or chemotherapy.

Together with creating a footprint in molecular medicine and building a deep understanding of disciplines such as molecular biology, bio-informatics and the ability to work with advanced life-science tools, Philips is realising its vision of supporting the elderly and chronically ill to live healthy and independently at home.

"We need to support the elderly to live independently in their homes as long as they can, as well as to focus on early diagnostics and advanced-care cycles to reduce the occurrence of chronic disease and to improve the productivity of healthcare. At Philips, we focus on increasing the quality of care for patients by healthcare providers," Smit said.

The healthcare industry is playing an ever bigger role in the world economy. with growing demand driven by demographic changes, he said. People are living longer. The number of those over 60 years is expected to double, from 900 million to over 1.5 billion, in 20 years.

"The more that people suffer from chronic illnesses, the more money and resources we have to spend in taking care of them. This has a tremendous economic impact. More productive healthcare can be a solution to this. We aim to increase the productivity of healthcare through early diagnostics and supporting elderly people to live longer at home," Smit said.

Philips is active in remote-patient management services through projects such as Motiva - a TV-based platform. Besides vital-sign monitoring, Motiva engages patients daily with personalised interactive content, helping care managers reach more patients, influence long-term behaviour and cut healthcare costs.

Nearly everyone has a TV. Motiva transforms this common household device into a whole new way for nurses to educate, motivate and communicate with their patients. Motiva lets clinicians continuously track each patient's level of knowledge, motivation and confidence to achieve specific health goals related to his or her chronic condition.

To reach its objectives of improving the patient experience and simplifying the workload of healthcare professionals, 10 per cent of Philips Medical Systems' equipment sales is invested in R&D each year.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation