I’m Dr Pamela Walker, Global Head of Healthcare at Kin + Carta. My career has focused on consulting within the healthcare sector and my areas of expertise include commercialisation of assets, digital transformations, strategy, acquisition advisory and market insight. I am passionately committed to inspiring success and opening new avenues of possibility in the world of health.
And this is what our Luminaries series is all about: Empowerment.
Our next Luminary, Penelope Wood, is the Global Head for Personalised Healthcare Diagnostics Strategy at Roche's Pharmaceutical Division. Roche is a multinational healthcare company that operates worldwide.
During our conversation, Penny highlighted the new opportunities being unlocked by technology and the changing ways of working required to realise them. Here’s what she had to say…
In your role, what are your objectives and goals?
I am the Global Head for Personalised Healthcare Diagnostics Strategy within Roche’s Pharmaceutical Division and am accountable for a team which sets & drives the execution of the commercial diagnostic strategy for our portfolio of personalised medicines.
My team has the important responsibility of ensuring that quality diagnostic testing is made broadly available so that each and every patient can receive the best treatment possible.
What will it look and feel like to be your customer in five years? What will be the same? What will be different?
New technologies and data are providing opportunities we didn’t have before to ensure that we can more accurately identify more patients for the right treatment at the right time. We are at a point now where next-generation diagnostics and digital tools are already starting to make their mark but challenges remain, particularly when it comes to access to testing.
For patients, in five years, I hope we are able to remove more barriers to diagnostic testing to enable patients to receive personalized care that leads to better outcomes for them and their families. And I believe their experience will be different — there is a lot of power in being able to provide patients with more rapid insights into their disease, treatment options and how they are doing on treatment over time. For healthcare professionals, the complexity and sheer amount of data and information they are expected to absorb and utilize is only increasing
I see the use of clinical decision support tools becoming more entrenched in clinical practice to help physicians make sense of how the data they have can impact the individual patient sitting in front of them in the office.