Healthcare projects are leading the pack in decentralized science
#HealthRevolution Medicine is leading the charge toward decentralized science — here’s why.
Healthcare projects are out-competing other sectors in the race toward decentralized science (DeSci).
Alex Dobrin, awareness steward at VitaDAO — a decentralized collective working to extend human lifespans — told Cointelegraph this is at least in part because the time and cost of bringing new drugs to market is “motivating people to take science and drug discovery into their own hands.”
He said there is “a growing sense” that biomedical research and development “is failing patients.”
Despite improving technology, the time and cost of bringing new drugs to market are “exponentially increasing,” he said.
The medical profession knows this as “Eroom’s Law,” a reversal of the more commonly known Moore’s Law, which states the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles every two years.
Eroom’s Law observes the opposite effect, with the cost of drug discovery doubling every nine years.
On Aug. 15, the research organization Onchain Foundation examined 60 decentralized science projects and discovered that 61% were in the healthcare niche.
Impacts of decentralized medicine
Dobrin pointed to real potential benefits from DeSci. He said it will bring “cheaper and faster drugs. Why? Because DeSci is more capital-efficient.”
Asher Looi, co-founder of blockchain and AI diagnostic tool BitDoctor.ai, also believes decentralized medicine has the potential to significantly improve existing systems.
“By sharing insights into clinical trial performance and using these insights as a collaboration tool, clinical research can become much more efficient while keeping sensitive commercial IP private,” Looi told Cointelegraph.
Looi also sees applications for blockchain within the clinical trial phase, advocating for clinical trial data to be recorded on the blockchain, making it both time-stamped and immutable.