Darshan
Hey everyone, welcome to the DarshanTalks live stream. I'm your host Darshan Kulkarni. It's my mission to help you trust the products you depend on. As you know, I'm an attorney, I'm a pharmacist, I advise companies with FDA regulated products. So if you think about drugs, wonder about devices, obsess over pharmacy. This is the live stream for you. I do have to clarify, I'm an attorney. But I'm not your attorney. So it's not legal advice. I'm a pharmacist, but I'm not your pharmacist, not clinical advice. And our guest today is an innovator. He's a compliance guru. But he's not your compliance guru. And he's not your innovator so that he's not giving you any kind of advice that's specifically right for you. I do these live streams because there are a lot of fun, because I find myself learning something new each time. But it would be wonderful to know if someone's actually listening. So if you like what you hear, please like leave a comment, please subscribe. If you'd like with the conversation itself. Please share. And you know what? Just reach out. comment, let us know what you're thinking, ask questions, you can always find me on Twitter at DarshanTalks, or just go to our website at DarshanTalks calm. Our podcast today is about one of my favorite topics. It's about innovation. So if you are in the life sciences, and you're trying to figure out is innovation happening is is all innovation basically COVID based right now, our conversation today should hopefully tell you that's not true. Our guest today is the VP of digital innovation. He spent 18 years as CIO, Chief Information Officer of United therapeutics, three in digital innovation. And he focuses on the intersection of technology and medicine. So So our guests today show that Oh Allah, shall I know I mispronounce that. Could you please pronounce it properly first.
Shola
Thank you, Shola. Or you.
Darshan
Or your wife. Yes. Course sort of mess that up. I appreciate it. Thank you. I will try to work on it. I'm so sure. First of all, you have a really, really interesting, very background. You've spent 18 years I mean, you've been in the United therapeutics for a very long time at this point, correct? Correct. So maybe you can talk a little bit about innovation in general in pharma? When do you think we changed from being let me discover new drugs, the latest newest drug to how do we harness and look for new opportunities using digital technology? What's been changing? How are we sort of addressing that now?
Shola
Well, thank you for the introduction. Nice meeting you. Good afternoon, everybody. I'd say the pandemic has given us an opportunity. And by us, I mean, both the industry, patients and the government, you saw a healthy alliance of the government and companies banding together to come up with drugs. That is probably one of the reasons why the drug delivery, the drug development process was so fast. Now we can imagine if this practice continue, right? Maybe we could get drugs faster to the market, get them in, you know, approved faster, get patients the drugs that they need, sooner rather than later. I suspect that that's been the catalyst, the COVID, the drug development will improve drug innovation.
Darshan
So So you say that, but we've been using technology for a while. I mean, we one of the favorite things I like to think of is the FDA, adding Amy Abernathy to their team, obviously, Amy's left already, and is now working with Google, but she was a flat iron. And to me, and I forget when this was probably like 2018 2019 is when she joined the FDA. It shows the FDA is willingness to start looking at technology as a core component of what they do. And obviously we've had different laws since 2009. They've been talking about it. But do you feel like we're harnessing technology in the many, many ways that we possibly could? Or do you think that we're still lagging behind what the rest of the rest of the world is doing?
Shola
Well, so it depends. It depends on the heart of biotech, or pharmaceutical the company is focused on, I can tell you about what we are doing and united. Short, our focus is in a very rare rare disease space called pulmonary rehab. Attention, right? And of recent, we are focusing on the future of drug development. Right. And this is using mathematics, essentially, you create a mathematical model of the disease, math, mathematical model of the molecules, I apply math to map, all this is done in computers. Right? To me, I think that is the future of drug development, r&d. You know, using computers actually digitalising what you're doing. So rather than the old fashioned way of testing on, you know, plants, animals, whatever it is, you could actually simulate all this in the computer. First, you create your mathematical models, before you try anything else. To me, that is the future of r&d.
Darshan
So you're right, I think that that's the direction the FDA is headed. I used to work with a company called satara. And they are one of the leading innovators in that space. So I remember reading somewhere that they said something like, 95%, I could be getting the numbers wrong, we could be completely clear, but something 95% of all applications, use one of the satara functions. So the point being, I'm agreeing with you that the future is using these digital platforms. Do you think though, that those platform platforms are getting better? Or do you do you find that the technology is still in its infancy,
Shola
the platforms are only as good as a mathematical model, your scientists can develop for the molecules, as well as for the disease, because Think of it this way, think of a virtual reality session, right? Yeah. And all these avatars are developed mathematically, the avatar was designed to look as precisely as you would look, you know, sometimes upload a photograph of you, and place it on top of an avatar, and then you're working on his 3d work well, so I am not a mathematician, and I'm not doing much justice in explaining what to do. But what I think it is, is, you've got to find a mathematical representation of the disease, a mathematical representation of the molecules that you have, okay, and then apply a piece and see what kills that disease. And the mathematical result is what you now develop into a compound or to a drug. Now, the speed at which you get there depends on the capacity, the capability of your scientists, and these are, these are, you know, mathematical and computer, you know, experts, you know, it's a marriage of both, right. And, um, it just depends on how difficult those models are to develop. I do not take with away from that, because we have, we're harnessing all kinds of technologies that are available today, you know, people have access to high speed computer, all kinds of programming languages. And these days, scientists are learning computer science, you know, whether biotech and biology in scope, so the marriage or the, you know, think of the confluence of all these forces coming together, the new the new skill set of the r&d folks of the future, a much more different than, say, 20 or 30 years ago,
Darshan
which, which is really interesting. You talk about this idea of pharmaco metrics, and the idea of these as sort of drug development using technology, which is, which is I think, amazing. But in the end, what it's really using is population size. And and what that what I mean by that is using tons of data from tons of different sources to say, what does this mean, in terms of drug approvals? Do you see a future where you can apply this population science to making individual decisions for patients? Or is that one step too far? It's very difficult to do that.
Shola
So I'm thinking about personalized medicine because personalized medicine is specific to you to the patient. And it might be we may have the same issue, but the drug given to both of us may be composed differently, that is different from crowdsourcing have collected, you know, data from a larger population size. So what are we talking about?
Darshan
So I'm talking about a combination of all those. So what I mean by that is, when we talk about crowdsourcing, we're talking about getting a collection of data Saying that, in general, this is what we can expect from from this drug or this device, in terms of approval. So FDA, based on this data, we we think you might be able to give us approval, what I'm taking it to the next step, which is, the FDA is giving you a generalized, we expected this drug device to work overall, because we got all this data. However, what the FDA does not do, and it's not technically it's not with us jurisdiction to do is to talk about the practice of medicine, which is we have a choice of 50 different drugs out there, which drug is right for you as the patient? So not necessarily talk about personalized medicine? As much as medicine that's right for you the practice of medicine? And do you think that we're gonna see a future where technology is going to play a bigger role in deciding what is the right medication for a individual patient?
Shola
I believe so. And, um, and that that might bleed into our next corporate conversation. I chaired a conference just last week. Yeah. blockchain in, you know, pharmaceutical world. And for the last few years, I have been talking about leveraging the public blockchain. Yeah, massive electronic medical records, you know, storage system. Okay. Yeah. And the point of that is I'm trying to democratize the ownership of medical records. When you go to a doctor or to hospital, right? The data about your care belongs to you Darshan. Fortunately, he recites, in multiple mainframe systems, cloud systems that belong to the hospital, you actually have no idea what they have on you, you really know, all you do is trust that they have some information, you get billed by your insurance company, you get a prescription, and then you know, you're satisfied. What I'm saying is all that data, all that information, right, should be stored. Right? In the public blockchain, not necessarily in the public blockchain, but it is a hashed version of it. And you gursha with your mobile device, swiping right, you can grant temporary access to anyone you want, okay, to your medical records, to your treatment to your prescriptions. So think of payers Think of your doctors think of your pharmacist and all that you swipe right, you're sharing information. Now, the beauty of that system is a part of your medical records sit in the public blockchain would be some data that's from so companies can pink to see if you're eligible for a trial for a study. That same part of that record, could also be used to personalize approved medicines, because your genetic makeup is stored that you have granted permission, right? for firms or companies to take a peek and see if you're the right fit for a certain version of the drug. Or if you're the right fit to participate in a certain clinical trial. Today, without you knowing your credit report is Miss lifted by financial companies all over the world. In fact, they look at it too much. It dings your credit score, but you have no idea who's looking the way you know, if you get all this junk mail, you know, the end of the week? Oh, you know that, you know, somebody is offering your credit? Well, what I'm saying is, um, let's reverse that in a little bit. Let's have you and I own our medical records. Let us choose whom we want to share it with. Okay, let us let us if we want to be compensated by providing that kind of access to pursue companies, or whomever is interested in providing genuine drugs for us, then that is a different conversation. But I'm saying First, let us own a medical records. Let's share that as we want and be a part of that would be genetic makeup of each one of us that companies can take a look at and say, Hey, this drug better fits you Shola. Between a genetic makeup that say, gosh, it could be the same headache, but a different color.
Darshan
So it's it's interesting you talk about that, because I've done several different conversations, several, several different interviews on exactly these types of issues. The one question that pops up to me over and over and over again as a lawyer is the issue of privacy. Which is yes, it would be amazing. If we all Put that information out there. However, the fact is that what we're recently discovering, and this has been seen in a few different hacks, that people can still access and break into blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, which we thought was impossible several weeks ago. So So I guess my question is putting your information onto the blockchain or onto a DLT. We're gonna use blockchain for short, right? onto the blockchain. Do you think that raises privacy concerns, especially when you're thinking about something like GDPR, or ccpa, where the information needs to be able to be withdrawn? If the patient still chooses?
Shola
Well, so you bring a very, very, very good point. So I'll address the gpdr part. The data belongs to you already. If you want to forget about yourself, what do you do delete it, it's yours under your care, it isn't sitting in a third party facility. So I address that, from a privacy point of view, what's actually stored on the public blockchain is just a hash rate of the actual information, all that is saved in a third party. So because the blockchain is not optimized for random access, it is a very slow system, because of its nature, the book, but what it keeps is a hash version, a pointer to where your actual medical record sits. Okay, right. And the privacy. So if anybody has a public blockchain, all they're gonna see is a bunch of numbers. Right? It's meaningless to them. Right? Right. Again, more importantly, not one company owns your medical record, you have it under your control. It is encrypted with your keys, you have a public key that you share with providers, you share with the pharmacy, you share with your doctor you share with your car, or your family. But all these can be revoked by swiping left.
Darshan
Right, right. So I'm thinking about what you're suggesting. And I think it's interesting, because we're at a time when everyone is talking about privacy, and about digital ownership. So as you know, you talk about GDPR, which, which is probably the most considered privacy law out there, maybe outside HIPAA. But the point being that GDPR, goes out and says the date, you have certain rights to the data, what I have to go back and double check, but I don't think it officially says you own the data. I think you have the right to edit, you have the right to change, you have the right to like a few different things. Similarly, ccpa says the same thing, none of the laws come out and say you outright own the data. Do you think that that's a step too far? Or do you think that it's best to numerate with the word own means? And that means edit, or change or withdraw? Or whatever it is?
Shola
I've said the latter. But then your is a very good point. Because that what you own is you your name, and everything about you. When work has been done with you, you have been enhanced, right? The person that did the enhancement probably owns, you know, Ben has visited to you, right? But you pay for it. insurance premiums, so somehow it does that it does belong to you eventually, at the end of the day, and you're the lawyer, I mean, I don't know how that worked. But I mean today, when you go to say Google, or you do a search, and two, three days later, it's again, spam. related to the search, do you feel violated? Do you feel like you are watched? I do. Okay, but Google has a right because they give you search for free?
Darshan
Oh, that's the question, right? But did I have the option to say I'll pay for it when I choose that option if I was given that option?
Shola
Okay. And that's a whole different question, right. So maybe there should be Google Search paid. And then Google Search free, and freebies, that can trap you for the paid. I love that idea. So I'm saying I already paid a premium to get medical care. I'd love to own the data in as much as you have enhanced me by giving me prescriptions. Taking care of me, the reality is, it is money. It's painful. Why would Why shouldn't I own my own data, I am responsible for my data, I'm responsible for the care, but keep, I'm also responsible for wanting to forget about myself the gpdr thing, I think if you give people ownership of their own data, and we give them the current infrastructure, to secure it, etc, and even monetize it, I mean, think of that, every time to get pick up, my medical record is smart contract is executed, and you pay me What a penny to Penny, whatever. So I am making passive income on my medical records. Today, my medical records are spread over so many hospitals that have different versions of me out there inaccurate, at best, right? We say centralize it, having managed the public blockchain have us regulate, who want to share it with
Darshan
you, you raise a really interesting concept, which is you're changing the paradigm from someone else owns the data, but we have rights to it as individuals, to you own the data. And then you actually give rights away. And we talk about this idea of give rights away, you raise raise a couple of interesting comments that I think are worth exploring. One of which is this idea of work for hire. And what I mean by that is, when you take a job with anyone, I take a job with anyone, the contract we signed specifically says if you invent something, while you're part of this employment, that belongs to me, because the work you're doing is quote unquote, work for hire. In the same way, what I hear you saying is that if you put data onto the blockchain, ignoring data on the blockchain, if you use my data to come up with something, theoretically, the work you did is worth the higher and therefore that also belongs to me, is the is one twist, the other twist of the same thing could be you go, yes, I own it as part of work for hire. But you take the second component of that, and you say, but you get a non exclusive right, to the data to use for XYZ reasons. Right? Which I have the I retained the right to withdraw whenever I want. That I lose you.
Shola
I like the latter. I mean, I am no lawyer, but I like the latter option where I get to give permission to whomever I'd like to them. Access to my medical records. Like to be compensated, if permission gives you the third party, a way to generate revenue. It's up to me if I want to donate it, versus revenue, right? But I think the data is about me. Alright, right. The data belongs to me, the data was collected on my behalf. It was work that was done to make me healthy. Yeah, wasn't done for free. It was great. Right? So I know this is very, very simplistic, but I am not a lawyer. I'm not a doctor. But I'm just saying, you know, for the longest time, we have given away data, our private lives for free, right? know more about you and me than we will ever No, but ourselves.
Darshan
So let me ask this question you talk about, and you raise a really interesting concept that, intuitively I knew exists, but I'd never actually put into words, which is you talk about this idea that different hospitals, and different providers have different versions of you, depending on when was the last time you went to them, which I think is such an interesting concept. But point being Do you?
Shola
Do you think
Darshan
that data should have a finite life somewhere? And what I mean by that is just because I gave you consent, do I have to proactively withdraw the consent? Or should that consent automatically get withdrawn at the end of 30 days, 90 days, three years, whatever that number is. And because the implications of that are dramatic, because payment needs to be done within 30 days. The moment you say that, that data gets withdrawn, it forces people to try to act within those 3090 whatever days timeline, it is. Or do you think that that's a step too far? Because that would disrupt business as we know it?
Shola
That's a very good question. So it part of the sharing at the time you share the swipe left swipe right thing I'm telling you about. Yeah, you can, you can preset the expiration date. Because you have a long term relationship with your doctor, with your, with your peers. You may give them unlimited. No days to access your medical records, it makes sense. And if you ever change doctors to change, insurance companies are whatever you revoke, and then share with your new, you know, with your new partner. So the thing we should remember the blockchain because of its immutability, things cannot delete data forever, right? forever. And cryptid hidden and under your control. Right? Okay. So it answers your question, you can revoke access whenever you want. Guidance will be as simple as this insurance companies may need 60 days in order to pay to review and pay whatever, whatever. So your mind when you swipe right to share with you primary insurance company, it probably gonna say 90 days of shared or infinity, because you are with them. But it'd be great just companies, you swipe left you revoked from insurance company a, and then share with insurance, Company B, infinity number of days. It is all managed by you, the consumer, and we're gonna make a lot of mistakes, we're gonna revoke when we shouldn't. And such instances, I mean, they'll be locked up, there's going to be a learning curve here, because many people are gonna say, Listen, I don't want to, I don't know, oh, my God, I don't want to own my own medical data. I don't trust me to own it. I want the hospital to hold it for me. That's fine. We got happy situation where hospital systems have some version of your medical record. But oh, like, you know, one version of truth, sitting outside where I control or shared with?
Darshan
So the question so it's funny you say that, because I'm trying to think through this. And I'm thinking of the myriad of ways this can be problematic, one of which is, let's say, I have insurance company that I give my give access to my data to? Does that mean, I've given it to just a company or its subsidiaries? What about its affiliates? What about the companies that help the company be the insurance company? Or is that one step too far?
Shola
Um, I would say if it trust Insurance Company A, then the assumption that you trust all the subsidiaries and partners upstream from that.
Darshan
That's a hard thing to agree to, because I don't know the subsidiaries and partners.
Shola
You do today, you trust the insurance companies today, somehow they're making payments, somehow they're that dictating care for you. See, I disagree with that, cite that out willy nilly, there are a whole bunch of analysts and partners sitting behind the scenes, doing all this for you. We have to
Darshan
say I'm gonna say I disagree with you on that point. And the reason I disagree with you, is because I don't trust them, I'm forced to accept that they have my data. And so there's a big difference between me agreeing and therefore trusting. And then doing it because they can and I have no say in the matter. The question is what the moment I have a say, Would I still give those same rights away?
Shola
Okay, so you have you raised another very good point. So how about we do this with the insurance company a for me, too, trust might be there with you. I like to know who your partners are. Okay. And I'd like a separate agreement with each one. Every time your partner needs to do some work on behalf of you Insurance Company A, they need granular access. Now, yeah, once you your medical record is vast, he has many, many sections you tend to write etc. You don't necessarily have to share everything with everyone you could say for partner A, B and C working for insurance company a. These are the sections of your records, they need access to, not everything. And for those that you don't trust. Do not give them access. But then remember that for insurance company, he do his job very well. It needs all its partners working in concert together. We can't say, we don't like these one, but we like this one. The question is, do you want to get reimbursed or not? Right? And I think it is it is something we'll have to step into. And it will encourage transparency, you know, partnerships. And I'm not mean, I'm an optimistic fella.
Darshan
This. I think that there's a great opportunity there. But I think it depends on a few different things. I think it depends on, first of all, getting into true identity management, which we as as a as a world have done a terrible job with. So identity management, I think everything from Microsoft to Google, I've been trying to figure out how to do identity, Facebook start to do identity management, they simply haven't gotten to it, and they can't pull it off yet. So it's a big issue. Assuming you conquer the issue of identity management, then you get into the practicalities of the issue, which is, yes, maybe sholeh smart enough to actually decide who to give access to and who not to give access to. But Will my grandmother or my father have the same knowledge? To say, Yes, I want this level of granularity. And this is too much granularity. And I love the concept of it. I think the devils in the details. And, and I would say that Apple should be in charge of that, because they seem to get the perfect level of detail. Right. On the other hand, Google gives you gives you more granularity, which is where you tend to lose people. So I don't know what your which one's right. But I think that's a wonderful place to end the conversation, mostly because, as you know, I aim for 15 to 20 minutes, I'm at 32 minutes already.
Shola
Well addressed that easily. For those that are not comfortable. Yeah, about this technology, because it is technology. Yeah, they could delegate a trusted person to handle the record. So for your case, you are very savvy, Grandma will delegate her care to you. So by swiping, right, she gives you delegate rights, where you do the necessary swiping left or right, with a third party. It is what we do. Anyway, today, when all customer care, we review the insurance, we review the insurance, you know, bills, and we help, you know, mitigate, I know
Darshan
I love that you raise the issue because I'm going to address it, and then we could go down this pathway. But imagine, so here's here's what I think you're telling me, you're telling me darsan grandma can trust you. But they shouldn't trust a corporation that is going to be held to certain laws. If I know that my grandma will be able to generate X amount of money because of her because of our data. And I give rights away, willy nilly, there's very little chance she's going to be able to sue me and get something out of me. On the other hand, she has the right to do that with the company. So it raises a whole new level of personal issues that simply don't exist right now. Because Grandma, grandma trusted me today. What should she trust me tomorrow? And when I had that level of granularity over what makes her her?
Shola
So today, when grandma gets a bill, yeah, from the insurance company, they say, hey, this care up is $65. And grandma, she calls Yeah, you know? Yeah. What's this? I mean, you sit on the phone, or you walk through each and you explain all that to her? Yeah, it's the same thing. It's like you're swiping left and
Darshan
right. The difference, however, is that in the case of that, that bill, grandma can go to the insurance company and say this bill is wrong. However, in the case of the app, when swiping left and right, Who does she go to the saying it's wrong?
Shola
She called you first. That's my point.
Darshan
Suddenly taking on that responsibility.
Shola
Well, then guess what? When grandma says, Hey, I want to delegate access to you're like, No, ma'am. I don't even sue me for making the wrong mistake. I mean, at the end of the day, right, it's an opt in thing like for, like I said earlier, if your contact manager, your medical records, fine, it can sit in a third party system. If you still have the public blockchain to secure it to secure the hashed version, that would access it, that's fine, but for those that are They're more comfortable managing their own care. I mean, for instance, you wave Fitbit, Apple Watch. They're all collecting data. I'm saying, rather than that good to Fitbit servers or Apple servers, stream all that into my medical records. I want a horizontal and then lucky to do view of myself. Right? Oh, marketing, I want to know much more about myself, if you could call it all this information. That is what I advocated.
Darshan
Oh, I'm 100% in favor of your idea? I'm I think the practicalities are where everyone's going to start disagreeing. And there's going to be no clear consensus. So it's going to wind up being, I think, in many ways, I'm not sure I want Apple or Google deciding how it should be done. I kind of want the government to decide, but I'm not sure that's that much better.
Shola
So well, what the pandemic has done was it also helped catalyze this idea because there are many apps out there that you could use to track your COVID vaccination status. leveraging the public blockchain. Yep, that that is one element of your medical records.
Darshan
You started Yeah.
Shola
Are you that tonight? Yes, no, when what whatever booster shot all that? How about other other things? Like, it's all managed by you. So it's, it's a slippery,
Darshan
slippery slope,
Shola
in a good way, because people are good. People over time, want a way to indicate their battle status in a very convenient, so they're gonna grab one of these apps? And before you know it, the app will say, Well, you know, you can store this information, you can add this permission, can I this information? What is it all doing is going into a repository somewhere where it is secured by the public blockchain? So what better mechanism? Do we have a highly distributed, highly accessible sustainable blockchain?
Darshan
So I'm gonna I'm gonna question and read. And we really should be like slowing down. But this is such a fun conversation. The the issue I have with a concept like that, I love the idea of it again, in in a in a concept perspective, however, the fact is that the moment I have that data on a that I can show I have COVID vaccination done and you should let me into this building. Because I've had my COVID vaccine, you get into a concept of vaccine passports. And the moment you get into concept of vaccine passport, what other people already have issues with the idea that someone it's very reminiscent of Nazi Germany, where you have to have demonstration that you fit in and show the show me your papers argument. Right? So today, it's COVID. Tomorrow, it could be something else. And how do you draw that line? Because now your your argument of I don't have it handy goes away. Because not everyone's gonna say, Show me your your vaccine passport. And tomorrow, show me something else? Because it's all going to be easily available. Do you have you meet these conditions? Show it to me, and I don't want to, and yet here I have to. So it raises issues of privacy, that that we probably hadn't contemplated, but are very easy downstream effects. And as you put it, it's that slippery slope we go down.
Shola
It is and I do respect privacy. And I do know that this could be abused. Exactly. But then if I needed to get into a bus and Metro and it was a requirement for me to be vaccinated before we get on, I'd like a convenient way to show it. Flush, you know, I am vaccinated. I mean, at the end of the day, I don't know if you recollect, but there was a time when we had yellow cards instead of passports every time. You don't know Well, for me growing up, I had a yellow vaccination card, I had to fly with my passport all the time. Every time I did vaccination, there was a stamp there. It's one out is dirty, it's old, it will get lost. Always say the list refer to some kind of digital record. And while it's there, include my Fitbit information, include my Apple Watch information, include everything else that I think I might need to figure out my health.
Darshan
We're never gonna finish this conversation because it'll always keep going. But so let me let me sort of, I 100% see your vision. I also 100% see the slippery slope we can go down, which I think is super fun, and we've got it we've got to have you back again, to continue this conversation because We it's so much fun. As you know, I'm gonna ask you a few different questions. So my first question, based on what we've discussed, what would you like to ask the audience?
Shola
Would you be comfortable owning your medical records? If you know it's secure, in transit secure addressed encrypted hashed? For very accessible to only people you trust, and easily revoked by the swipe of a finger? Would you be comfortable managing and owning your electronic medical record?
Darshan
So I usually try to answer the question first. So I would be very comfortable owning. I'm less comfortable managing. I mean, I'm even less comfortable trusting someone to manage my medical record. So take it, I think it's a slippery slope. So we'll see how that plays itself out. The truth is whether or not I like it, that's the direction we're going. I know, I know, as you as you do, several people are working in that space as we speak. The question is, how successful will they be? Because as we know, Google in the last week, an apple in the last week announced that they're disbanding their health units, which speaks to how difficult this process is. So I don't know what the future looks like. But I know that the future is going to be interesting.
Shola
May I just add, please? The reason they are finding it difficult is they're trying to find a way to monetize it. Okay, after all, what is the angle for them? Do they love you that much? No. I mean, they've got to figure out how do I make money from this? And how do you make money from this as you cannot because they didn't sit in mainframes, in hospital system. And those mainframe systems are not going to give it to you for free. No, it's not going to happen. It has to be the reverse, meaning the grassroots you and I say, listen, we want our data, we want to own it. It has to come from the bottom of
Darshan
it, we can have a whole conversation about that. So that's so so interesting. Next question for you. Over the last month, what's something you've learned that you'd like to share with the audience
Shola
over the last month, what I've learned over the last month is the important of vaccination, especially particularly for the COVID Nitin and preparing for the Delta period. To be properly vaccinated, gives us the freedom to do that which we must do to grow. Right. To help patients. I've lost friends, I've, you know, I know people that that have suffered terribly, and it but I'm grateful that you know, we have an approved vaccination. I'm grateful that more people are taking this seriously. And I am super happy that schools have started and students can go back and continue to learn this momentum, we must try to keep up by ensuring everybody is comfortable and gets vaccinated.
Darshan
Very cool. And for that, take a look at your screen get vaccinated. To quote show up. My last question for you Oh, just just in case people can see it. You can reach so chilla on on via email Shola at un i th er calm for United therapeutics. Sure. Is there another way for people to reach you?
Shola
I'm also on LinkedIn, you can search for me on LinkedIn, same name, same email address.
Darshan
Very, very cool. And last question for you. She'll show up in the last week. What is something that's made you happy.
Shola
My daughter going back to school this morning. She riding the bus for the first time she's a fourth grader and nothing makes me happier than seeing her super independent, super happy to make new friends and fourth grade and get back into the grind of things. So I do encourage everyone please get vaccinated so our kids can stay in school.
Darshan
Very, very cool on those on that note, I do hope you'll consider coming back. This was a lot of fun. And thank you for being a guest.
Shola
Thank you. It's been my honor. I appreciate it. Thanks.
Shola
This is the DarshanTalks podcast, regulatory guy, irregular podcast with host Darshan Kulkarni. You can find the show on twitter at DarshanTalks or the show's website at DarshanTalks.com
