Are Digital Health Companies Aiming Too Low — Or Is Incremental Improvement Underappreciated?

Breathless language about changing the world and disrupting the known universe aside, most digital health companies I know aren?t proposing radical new treatments for dreadful diseases ? or anything close (see this articulate critique by David Whelan, and this one by Matthew Holt).  At the end of the day, most simply hope to make existing approaches somewhat faster, cheaper, or qualitatively better (i.e. improve the experience of cancer patients, rather than develop novel treatment for the underlying disease).   When you think about it, this isn?t much different than the way the biopharma industry (where I work) is often (derisively) described.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidshaywitz/2012/05/21/are-digital-health-companies-aiming-too-low-or-is-incremental-improvement-underappreciated/