Microelectronics & healthcare provision

Interview with Anton Hofmeister, General Manager of ST's Microfluidic Division, Agrate, Italy

Slowly but surely, the benefits of using ST’s products and technology for applications in healthcare are becoming more apparent to all concerned. With the help of Anton Hofmeister, General Manager of ST’s Microfluidic Division, we look at the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

Semiconductor chips lie at the heart of all advanced technology, whether aviation, automotive, telecoms, IT or other technological enterprises. They are taken for granted in everyday consumer applications and because they are so small, and getting smaller, it’s easy for the public to be unaware of their existence. Yet it is this size which is helping open the door for microelectronics in the healthcare sector.

It’s certainly a sector where new ideas are needed. Advances in medicine, and consumer needs and expectations, compounded (in the nicest possible way) by people living longer, have put dramatic financial pressure on healthcare systems. And the scope for new applications is enormous given the increasing power and precision of our technology. Consider perhaps imaging sensors we use today to take pictures with our cell phones. The same technology will be applied one day for diagnostic purposes by taking pictures inside a patient’s body in a less invasive and more affordable way.

In Anton Hofmeister’s microfluidic work, we see a perfect contemporary illustration of this theory in practice: “In ST we have a long history of MEMS based microfluidics products for inkjet printers. In fact we are a world leader in how to work with small amounts of fluid, and how to apply this to print technology. About five years ago we realized we could apply this fundamental know-how to medical devices”.

The microfluidic work in healthcare falls into two main areas, which could very informally be described as In and Out - either injecting or extracting fluid from the human body. A prime example of injection would be the tiny pump on a patch (see article page 53) which allows a precise, continuous flow of insulin into the body - and of course, many other medications could be used following the same principle. ST’s In-CheckTM Lab-on-Chip platform is the reverse example, where blood, or any other body fluid, can be extracted in tiny amounts for diagnosis in miniaturized form, actually on the chip.

Clearly applications like these have huge implications for world medicine and for the individual, as Anton describes: “While the insulin pump will initially help those with a continuous need for insulin, once it becomes mass produced, it will be used by many diabetes patients in what unfortunately is a growing market, due to the sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition habits in industrialized society. In case of Lab-on- Chip, our applications can help accelerate the trend toward early diagnosis of infectious disease and a more focused treatment”. And while this thinking currently applies to industrialized countries, in the developing world microelectronics offers the opportunity to bypass a whole generation of medical techniques. In the long term our technology will allow developing countries to jump directly to the situation where rural doctors perform diagnostics ‘in the field’ - much like a country avoiding the need for a wired telecommunications network since a wireless one can now be installed.

So, even leaving aside the more obvious applications in health information systems, clearly there is a market for microelectronics in the treatment and prevention side of healthcare. But what are the challenges? Firstly there are those related to the multidisciplinary approach required. As Anton points out: “For the development of our Lab-on-Chip In-CheckTM platform, on top of the electronics system we need to understand biochemistry, biology, diagnostics, etc…. There is an organizational challenge as part of the very specific know-how belongs to our customers. We need to be able to speak their language in order to develop a platform which fits their needs”.

Then there are challenges in the market itself: “Yes, as it’s dealing with human lives, healthcare is fairly conservative as a sector and adoption cycles for new technology are rather long. Fortunately we are not talking about 10-15 years as in the case of a new drug, but still quite a bit longer than in consumer electronics”. It is also difficult to predict when a disruptive technology such as Lab-on-Chip will take off, but when it does, growth is often explosive. Says Anton: “You can make all the forecasts you like, but imagine there is a serious outbreak of avian flu and our partner has a reliable, low cost rapid test available with our Lab-on-Chip. It could generate major growth within months as governments need to prepare for massive monitoring of entry ports into their countries”.

There are also high barriers to entry - the healthcare market is dominated by a small number of very large players who have longstanding business relationships with medical professionals and the regulatory bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration in the USA. “So really our task is about forming strategic partnerships with the big players, which is part of ST’s traditional approach and something we have done successfully in many other industries”.

However, working with the big companies is not enough as it is often small start-ups which push the new technologies more aggressively into the market. “This is why we partner with companies such as Veredus in Singapore, or Mobidiag in Finland”. Certainly the strategic partnership route is the most suitable for ST. One other thing is for certain, in the future of healthcare, small is big.