In her talk at Stanford, Ryan Phelan of DNA Direct describes a growing gap between the today's science ability to analyze people's DNA and the health care system's lack of capacity to interpret/address the results for the people.
Based on her presentation, we can formulate an important modern medical tradeoff: on one hand, the doctor has to spend a lot of time with each patient to explain potential implications of a DNA test, and work out an appropriate treatment or a lifestyle change; on the other hand, the doctor cannot spend a lot of time with each patient, because it would further drive up the health care costs.
A lot of innovation must happen in this area to break through the trade-off and deliver high quality service at a very low (scalable) cost.
* Also, it is worth noting how a strong effort by the same person leads to drastically different results, when applied in different markets and time periods. For example, an equestrian gear catalog business failed due to a limited opportunity and a recession, while a medical information business grew dramatically with the market and expansion of the internet bubble.
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