6th Lesson

Today's lesson was on BioBusiness- Healthcare. 

As people become more health-conscious these days, they are willing to spend more to keep themselves healthy and fit. This results to a wide variety of health-related products, especially vitamins and supplements to be heavily marketed. Also, do take a look at http://www.visualeconomics.com/how-the-average-us-consumer-spends-their-paycheck/ This shows a rough breakdown of how an average American spends his salary, which is about $2853 annually on healthcare alone. 

Prof shared about how herbal and traditional medicine are opportunities that can be further looked into. In the past, these medicine are merely considered to be folklore cures. However, these medicine are actually becoming more popular in demand now. Firstly, they are herbs and thus, little or no side-effects at all. Not only that, these herbs also contain other properties that are beneficial for the body. On the other hand, western drugs often prove to be faster and more effective cures instead, but they may be harmful for the body in the long run.

By 2020, it is forecasted that there will be a shift from infectious to chronic diseases as the major causes of death. With better sanitation and availability of basic healthcare in most parts of the world, infectious diseases like malaria and tuberculosis have decreased significantly. However, chronic diseases like diabetes and heart failure are often triggered by physical inactivity and poor diet. For example, America is one of the countries in the world with high obesity rates and this is contributed from consumption of junk food, alcohol, tobacco and the lack of exercise.  

In conclusion, biobusiness for healthcare is definitely a lucrative business to look into! With more resources pumped into research work, there is also a need to ensure that the cures will be made affordable for almost everyone in the world. Lastly, I'll end with a quote from someone's fb status "No one should die because they cannot afford healthcare, and no one should go broke because they get sick."

8.5/10 for this lesson! Thought that the oral presentations done by my fellow classmates were interesting, especially on organs trading, patenting and counterfeit drugs, which raised many insightful perspectives by Prof and the rest of the class!