Medicine of the Future: Opportunities for Breakthrough through the Prism of Technology Foresight

Many countries consider healthcare a priority area of development. Its future milestones lie in two key dimensions: social — combating common and complex diseases, and economic — establishing S&T basis that will provide leadership, or at least a decent niche in the global markets. The paper provides the results of a study conducted by the HSE in cooperation with the member organizations of technology platform “Medicine of the Future”. It supposes and empirically tests the feasibility of matching challenges and responses aimed at selecting the priorities of S&T development. The study identified underlying trends and S&T areas that will shape the medium and long term prospects of medicine, as well as backlogs allowing gaining strong global market positions. The possible technology responses for the most significant healthcare challenges for Russia are identified, and a priority research agenda is proposed. The authors conclude that Russia lacks breakthrough S&T capacities in the majority of promising medical areas. Meanwhile, domestic advances in some fields still offer the chance for a breakthrough and gaining solid positions on global markets as well as for integration in the value chain. Time to catch up with these opportunities however is running out: most of them are estimated to be available only for the next 5-7 years, so urgent actions are required. These results have been widely discussed in the framework of a range of communication platforms, including that of expert groups preparing the draft state-run programme «Development of Science and Technology for the period up to 2020», and working committees of the technology platform «Medicine of the Future», which are presented at Russian and international conferences.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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