With nearly 25 years of working at Siemens Healthineers all over the world, the Managing Director of the Swedish organization, Eric LaFleche, talks about his work in medtech, the future of life science with precision medicine, and the opportunity for increased collaboration between hospitals, academia, and industry.
Siemens Healthineers in Sweden is a commercial organization of about 200 people across the country focusing on sales, marketing, service, and training of their medical solutions. Siemens Healthineers brings innovation and the most technologically advanced medical imaging, radiation therapy, digital and laboratory diagnostics solutions to the market.
- We want to transform care with our technology, and ultimately improve the lives of patients, says LaFleche.
Siemens Healthineers’ medical products and solutions have been used by healthcare providers for many years to diagnose patients. When speaking about current trends and what the future of Siemens Healthineers and life science might look like, LaFleche expresses an interest and passion for precision medicine and preventive care specifically.
LaFleche explains that the momentum building around precision medicine and individualized care is very interesting for Siemens Healthineers. As a company, they are very well positioned to work and capitalize on this new trend. Siemens Healthineers are producing a large amount of data via their laboratory tests as well as their imaging scans, which can be used to support individualized care for patients. Additionally, LaFleche talks about the shift currently happening from the focus on the end of the patient pathway in the form of sick care, to the beginning of the patient pathway in the form of preventive care. This is something LaFleche thinks is very important for the industry, and specifically for Siemens Healthineers as they are a company focused on diagnostics and ultimately preventing patients from becoming sick in the first place.
- At Siemens Healthineers, we are heavily involved in this concept of digital twinning, says LaFleche when speaking of the future in life science.
Health digital twinning is the concept of taking data of a particular person from all types of sources, such as imaging scans, lab tests, genomics, smartwatches, and so on, to create a digital replica of that same particular person. In that way, healthcare providers can introduce different types of therapies to see how they would affect the patient, without taking the risk of trying it on the actual patient. Meaning, clinicians can observe potential side effects, and get an idea on which potential treatments could work.
- This concept can also be applied to specific organs, like the heart or liver. A “digital heart under our control” can, for example, help to predict the success of cardiac resynchronization therapy. The basis for this are: a) anonymized data from many hearts (MR, EKG, blood pressure, blood count, genetics) b) Current patient data – the digital twin has the same shape, dimensions, electrical signal activation, and blood pressure fluctuation as the patient’s heart, adds LaFleche.
Regarding the future of life science, LaFleche comments that collaboration becomes more and more important, as one single entity or company will not be able to solve all of healthcare’s challenges by themselves. Hospitals are now looking for end-to-end solutions that impact a particular value chain in a broader way.
- We have an impact on one area of the imaging value chain, for example, but if we can create partnerships and collaborations that work in other areas, we can deliver a more impactful result, explains LaFleche.
Siemens Healthineers is constantly working with the public healthcare system, however, he believes that there is a bit of skepticism towards the intentions of the industry coming from the public sector.
- I hear a lot of times from different parties that public healthcare, academia, and the industry need to collaborate more. But it is, many times, actually very difficult to do this in practice and I find that it relates back to this skepticism, explains LaFleche.
To change this perception, LaFleche thinks the industry should and needs to work hard to prove themselves by implementing new solutions and products in hospitals in Sweden and demonstrating positive outcomes.
Clearly, with his many years of experience working in life science in different countries, LaFleche has a unique view of what makes the Swedish market stand out from a global perspective.
- There are a lot of grassroots and homegrown innovations of technology here. You can really see this with all the life science start-ups and companies coming out of Sweden. And to go along with that, the overall mindset of the country is of an innovative one, says LaFleche.
LaFleche explains that Siemens Healthineers recently introduced a brand-new Computed Tomography (CT) machine, which uses an innovative technology, called photon-counting, that is unique to the market. Now, 18 months later, Sweden already has a significant number of Photon-Counting CTs in use, which very much exemplifies the innovative spirit of the country.
Nevertheless, there are a few weaknesses within the life science market in Sweden as well. Such as the skepticism mentioned previously, and the fact that change within the public healthcare system happens quite slowly. Another difficulty related to Sweden, but not unique to Sweden, is the challenge of data integration. LaFleche elaborates that the aspiration he, Siemens Healthineers, and many others have regarding precision medicine becomes hard to move forward with when integrating data from disparate systems is a challenge.
LaFleche’s organization within Siemens Healthineers is spread out all over the country. He explains that the reason why they decided to establish an office at GoCo Health Innovation City simply comes down to the two factors: the West Coast employees should have access to a new and modern office and Siemens Healthineers wanted to place themselves in the middle of a life science ecosystem.
Although discussions of cross-border collaboration have happened, it is too soon to comment on the outcome of being located at GoCo from a collaboration point of view states LaFleche.
- However, from an employee satisfaction and engagement point of view, being at GoCo has accomplished that and more. It has been incredible, says LaFleche.
He continues to explain that it has created excitement with the employees being in a modern and new environment that is full of energy, and creativity and focused on life science.
Further, LaFleche is very excited to see the result of GoCo as a concept, and how different organizations and people being put in the same physical location might lead to collaboration and innovation. He is, as one example, interested in seeing how collaboration within sustainability might happen within the ecosystem.
Conclusively, LaFleche describes GoCo Health Innovation City as a modern, forefronting place where the essence of life science exists in the walls.
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