For too long we’ve confused the status quo for stasis in bio and healthcare. We’ve accepted certain things as true—things we believed to be intractable, or at the very least, extremely hard to change. Then came 2020: the year bio and healthcare had to move fast. We saw adaptation and adoption of new technologies, cultures, and approaches with incredible agility and speed. A vaccine was developed in 42 days. Virtual medicine became the norm. New regulations on everything from drug prices to telehealth licensure and reimbursement swept through the government. And much of bio and healthcare will never look the same.
These new tools and technologies are already changing how we approach everything: what we develop, how we develop it, and how it’s deployed to patients. Now, it’s time to build.
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It's Time to Heal: 16 Trends Driving the Future of Bio and Healthcare
These are the biggest trends we believe will transform biology, medicine, and healthcare. Successful companies will be built in all of these areas—will yours be one?
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The New Tech Stack for Virtual-First Care
The next generation of digital health companies need a new OS… and providing that tech stack is a very large opportunity. In this video (and downloadable deck), a16z general partner Julie Yoo describes the tech stack coming for virtual-first digital health companies: capabilities they’ll need, go-to-market motions, and characteristics that will make for success.
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Evaluating AI in Bio: How to Know Whether it’s Worth the Work
There are so many new applications for AI in bio, with many toutting impressive results. But implementing an AI product requires effort—so how do you know if it will truly be worth your while? Vijay Pande and Andy Tran provide principles to abide by, point out some common pitfalls, and share how they think about evaluating AI-driven bio technologies.
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What is a Bio Platform For?
In the same way the automotive industry went from single “job shops” to assembly lines with reusable, iterable, standardized components, a new kind of industrialized platform is revolutionizing the biotech industry. Jorge Conde and bio deal team partner Judy Savitskaya describe the new business models these platforms are bringing, and what it means for company building in biotech.
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Platform-Disease Fit: Why You Need It and How to Find It
Selecting the first disease to target is one of the most critical and difficult decisions a bio platform startup has to make. Jorge Conde and bio deal team partner Andy Tran break down the key considerations for how to sort through the ~10K human diseases to find the right strategic fit.
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Bio Eats World Podcast: The Machine That Made the Vaccine
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel—in conversation with a16z general partner Jorge Conde and host Hanne Winarsky—tells the story of the machine that made the COVID-19 vaccine: the science, the technology, and the moves behind the vaccine’s development.
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It’s Not About Video. It’s About Always-on Triage.
We’ve celebrated virtual medicine’s progress—in particular the video visit—during COVID-19. But in fact, a16z general partner Vineeta Agarwala argues, this is just one part of an even bigger shift coming: how we triage our patients. With “always-on triage”, virtual medicine will better connect patients to the right kinds of care across all parts of our health system.
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Building Clinical Rigor into Virtual Care
Not all virtual care models are created equal, or have equal benefits to patients. So how do you build a virtual clinic that provides the best patient care and has strong business fundamentals and performance? As bio deal team partner Justin Larkin describes in this piece, it’s through incorporating clinical rigor (in its multiple meanings) from the ground up.
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Solving Baumol’s Cost Disease in Healthcare
How come things like healthcare and education get more expensive, but things like shoesa and TVs get cheaper? a16z general partner Vijay Pande discusses the law of economics that explains this—and how AI can perhaps finally transform this in healthcare.
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Bio Eats World Podcast: The Cost Disease in Healthcare
In this conversation about technology and society across all industries, a16z cofounder Marc Andreessen and general partner Vijay Pande talk about the impact new technologies can have on rising cost in healthcare... from eye surgery in malls to using AI in processing medical claims. Is there a future in which what doctors are doing today feels analogous to farmers hand plowing fields 300 years ago?