Don't miss a thing! Sign up to be notified about new blog posts.
One of Zoom’s investors, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, was recently featured on 60 Minutes in a segment entitled “Disrupting Cancer.” This piece focused on Dr. Soon-Shiong’s unconventional efforts to treat cancer and included an interview between he and Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
“Cancer has outwitted scientists and doctors for decades,” says Dr. Gupta. Dr. Soon-Shiong sees technology as the main weapon against cancer. As such, he has devoted over a billion dollars of his own money to investing in this technology along multiple fronts:
1. High-speed tumor gene sequencing machines, which tell doctors the precise genetic mutations that cause a patient’s cancer. It would be more advantageous to pick treatments using this information than the current designation of a tumor based on where in the body it presents. “A lung cancer drug could work on breast cancer…if the mutation is the same,” explains Dr. Gupta.
A Blackberry device displays a cancer genome.
2. But the fight against cancer doesn’t end with diagnostics. Dr. Soon-Shiong has developed his own biotech company with the goal of producing 20 to 30 cancer drugs a year. This goal may sound audacious, but, Dr. Soon-Shiong asserts, “We don’t have that time…The war against cancer is a war against time.” So there is not enough time to wait for the typical multi-year process for a new drug.
3. Dr. Soon-Shiong is also among the doctors working on immunotherapy now. With immunotherapy, T-cells, which produce naturally in our body, actually eat up cancer cells.
4. Finally, Dr. Soon-Shiong wants to prevent cancer from metastasizing by finding rogue cancer cells through liquid biopsies, wherein a blood sample is put through a bio-chip that separates blood cells from tumor cells.
So what does this have to do with Zoom? The fact that Dr. Soon-Shiong is a Zoom investor should give you some clue. Zoom is in healthcare too. We’re connecting stakeholders from across the healthcare industry, from one-to-one doctor-patient check ups to large-scale medical professional training.
For more on how Zoom and video telemedicine is revolutionizing patient care, you can watch this recorded webinar featuring Don Ross, HealthTech Capital Managing Director, and Dr. Ron Pion, Founder of Visual Collaboration Innovation. In this video they discuss key growth drivers, challenges, and new technologies in the telemedicine industry.
For a first-hand caregiver account, watch this video, also featuring Dr. Ron Pion and a real home healthcare interaction over Zoom:
You can also learn more about Zoom and telemedicine by visiting with our team at the following upcoming events:
Curious about Zoom? Get your free account today!