Scientists have begun to understand, target, and diagnose illnesses on a molecular level. Cancer, for instance, is not one disease, but the result of innumerable genetic mutations. We are now aware that there are 250 to 300 types and subtypes of cancer.

The approach to treatment has fundamentally changed. Doctors can identify the drivers of the disease and therefore better predict how well a patient is going to respond to a treatment. With the help of sophisticated diagnostic tests and tools, specific genetic defects or other malfunctions can be detected and treated.

But our understanding of medicine continues to grow. For instance, we are just beginning to learn what drives illnesses such as Alzheimers’. And the experience of millions of patients in the clinic every day is captured on paper, stored in archives and never tapped into to understand whether and how treatments can be improved.

In an era of digital technology, we will be able to increasingly tailor medical treatment to the needs of individuals and small groups of patients. Far more information will be captured, stored and analysed to learn how diseases manifest themselves and how patients experience them day-to-day. Combined with a deeper understanding of molecular science and new methods for diagnostics, this development will bring disruptive change to how we research, develop, approve and pay for medicines, as well as how patients and their physicians make decisions about whether, when and how to treat their illnesses.