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 The Swiss drugmaker has teamed up with U.S. technology firm Qualcomm
to develop an internet-connected inhaler that can send information
about how often it is used to remote computer servers known as the
cloud.
This kind of new medical technology is designed to allow patients to
keep track of their drug usage on their smartphones or tablets and
for their doctors to instantly access the data over the web to
monitor their condition.
It also creates a host of "Big Data" opportunities for the companies
involved - with huge amounts of information about a medical
condition and the efficacy of a drug or device being wirelessly
transmitted to a database from potentially thousands, even millions,
of patients.
The potential scale of the so-called "Medical Internet of Things"
has not been lost on pharmaceutical and tech firms around the world,
both big companies hunting growth and smaller ones looking to
provide bespoke products and services.
It has created unlikely alliances.
Novartis' domestic rival Roche has also teamed up with Qualcomm and
Danish diabetes drugmaker Novo Nordisk has partnered with IBM on
cloud-linked device projects, for example, while healthcare device
maker Medtronic is working with a U.S. data-analytics firm Glooko.
GlaxoSmithKline, meanwhile, is in talks with Qualcomm about a
medical technology joint venture potentially worth up to $1 billion,
according to people familiar with the matter.
However, with the opportunity comes risk.
Security experts warn that hacked medical information can be worth
more than credit card details on the black market as fraudsters can
use it to fake IDs to buy medical equipment or drugs that can be
resold, or file bogus insurance claims.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there
are 35 million U.S. hospital discharges a year, a billion doctor and
hospital visits and even more prescriptions, much of which is stored
in cloud databases.
CLOUD CONCERN
Now the "Medical Internet of Things" is introducing more and more
web-connected devices into the equation and pushing even more
confidential patient data on to the cloud.
This is creating potential new opportunities for thieves seeking to
penetrate medical companies' security where they may target names,
birth dates, policy numbers, billing data and the diagnosis codes
needed to obtain drugs, say experts.
"The weakest link tends to be the medical device itself," said Rick
Valencia, senior vice president of Qualcomm Life, Qualcomm's
four-year-old healthcare unit. "They weren't designed with the idea
in mind that they would be going over the network and the
information would be residing in cloud infrastructure."
Medtronic, the world's largest standalone medical device maker, said
in 2014 it lost patient records in separate cyberattacks at its
diabetes business.
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"The more information, the easier identity theft is and the more
valuable the profiles that the hacker can sell to third parties,"
said Erik Vollebregt, a lawyer in Amsterdam who specializes in
medical device cybersecurity and privacy.
He said it could also be possible for criminals to hack into
web-connected medical devices, and threaten the lives of patients,
to blackmail the manufacturer.
Despite no documented patient-endangering hacks, the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration warned last year an infusion pump could be
vulnerable to attack and asked healthcare providers to stop using
it.
SMART LENS
Novartis aims to have its inhaler for chronic lung disease, to be on
the market by 2019. Other pharma-tech alliances include Aerocrine
and Microsoft, which are working together on a cloud project to
analyze data from allergy and asthma patients.
Google is, meanwhile, working with French drugmaker Sanofi to
collect and analyze information from diabetes sufferers. The U.S.
tech giant also has a partnership with Novartis to develop a smart
contact lens that can monitor diabetics' glucose levels.
All the companies involved in such projects say they are going to
extreme lengths to protect patients' data from hackers.
Philips has turned to San Francisco-based identity-management
software maker ForgeRock to keep data from the Dutch company's
medical devices from falling into the wrong hands.
Software security expert Marie Moe, of Norway's SINTEF scientific
research foundation, said the wireless ports in the pacemaker that
keeps her heart beating left it vulnerable to intrusion - but that
she could not survive without the device.
"Wireless interfaces are a great benefit to certain patient groups,"
she told Reuters. "But as a security researcher, I know connectivity
also means vulnerability."
(Additional reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago, Jim Finkle in
Boston and Ben Hirschler in London; Editing by Pravin Char)
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