Today’s lesson was pretty interesting and fresh! The topic was on Biobusiness and I honestly had little idea about this topic before I went into class. Biobusiness, as we can infer from the term, is the commercial activity based on the understanding of life sciences and life science process. For example, the everyday pharmaceutical, healthcare are all part of Biobusiness. It has an increasing share in countries as well as the world’s GDP.
This is one of the tables Prof showed us as trends of global burden of disease. From the table, we can compare the differences in causes of death from 1990 to 2020. We can see that lower respiratory infections dropped from the top cause of death in 1990 to the 6th in 2020, while the heart disease rose from the 5th top cause of death in 1990 to the top cause of death in 2020. In 1990, it is perhaps hard to imagine that heart diseases and major depression would be the top 2 cause of death in 2020. However, in today’s day and age, it is of no surprise. There is a new global middle class rising from emerging countries and people are more affluent all over the world. We are able to afford to eat comfortably, and sometimes perhaps, excessively. Despite increased awareness of obesity and education on eating healthy, there are still 1 billion adults overweight and 300million obese worldwide today. This statistics is a stunner and it is increasing rapidly. This is why is not surprising why heart disease is the top cause of death as obesity will lead to heart diseases. Adding on, in today’s context, efficiency and productivity is crucial. This is has caused increasing stress levels as having to constantly meet deadlines. Stress will also contributes to aggravating the heart and therefore lead to a heart disease. Stress also contributes to depression, which is the second top cause of death in 2020. There are lots of reasons why people go into depression and perhaps rising divorce levels, stress levels, deprivation are some examples why people do so. I personally agree that the heart disease and major depression will be the top 2 causes of death in 2020, however, I do not agree that war will appear in the top 10 of causes of death. The world today is so globalized and connected that countries are so dependent on each other. China has huge amounts of bonds in the US, Singapore has large reserves in Switzerland banks, currencies are pegged against the US, every country is so economically interconnected with one another. Thus, I feel that waging war will be farfetched in the future, and will not be in the top 10. Even if there is war, it will be an economic one.
Also, during the lesson, one question was brought up about counterfeit drugs, whether or not we are able to stop counterfeiting drugs. Personally, I think it’s not possible at all. Firstly, there is just too many syndicate groups out there to actually bust each and every one of them. Even if we manage to bust one, another one will pop up. Why? The reason is simple, there are huge profits to be earned in this business. Due to asymmetric information by consumers, it is easy for these syndicates to bluff their way through. Besides, since aesthetically it is exactly the same as the real ones, consumers will not question. This makes the business more lucrative as it is an essential to consumers. Secondly, the procedures to check if the drugs are real or not is time consuming. Since it is not possible for investigators to check on the spot, they have to run several tests before being able to detect if it is counterfeit or not.
Another question brought up during class was also if technology will cause healthcare to be more expensive or not. I did not get to voice out my opinions but I feel it technology will cause healthcare to be cheaper. Initially, yes healthcare will be more expensive due to fees needed to pay the researchers and practitioners. However, the technology will become a fixed cost whereby when it is used commonly by people, it will be made cheaper. An example is that of LASIK. Initially, when it was first introduced, it was a revolutionary breakthrough in the medical field. A treatment cost about 10k in the past, however now, it only costs an average of 3k. Therefore I feel that technology will eventually cause healthcare to be cheaper.
I would rate the lesson 9/10 as I had an enjoyable time learning new stuffs :)
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