Last year, I said the next few years would see an exponential growth in the take-up of healthcare apps and wearables, measuring pulse, blood pressure, weight, glucose levels, breathing activity and more, as people’s obsessions with lifestyle morph into real healthcare benefits. That is taking off but there is further to go and will continue to grow fast in 2016. Meanwhile, there are other impacts of the convergence of technology with healthcare with the 3D printing phenomenon. The ability to develop personalised prosthetic limbs using 3D printing will happen soon, and further in the future (a bit beyond 2016) there will be 3D printing of medication – as outlandish as that sounds! As I write this, I feel safer in making those predictions, than in sticking my neck out about what will happen with future data protection regulation in Europe and the legal ease for businesses to make data transfers out of Europe!
Paul Gershlick, Partner, Matthew Arnold & Baldwin LLP
