The future of medicine
Investment guru Martin Diggle reveals how biomedical research will forever change humanity
Take us through your career in finance – and how it brought you to where you are today.
I’m a financial markets person; I studied economics at Oxford. I started my career in the ’80s at Morgan Stanely in London and in the ’90s, I had the opportunity to live and work in Russia. Having sold one business there, I went into partnership with my brother in Singapore. The business that
I run now is Vulpes
Life Sciences Fund, a biotech fund we developed from a real fascination with the possibilities of new medicines and what they could do for the world.
What excites you about life sciences and biotechnology?
If you look at the human body, from the neck down, we’re all basically machines. The heart the lungs, the stomach, the liver – they have a job to do, but they’re essentially machines. If that’s the case, why not use advances in robotics to help cure the diseases of the body, from the neck down? I think there’re going to be enormous advances in that in the next decade, and I think in 100 years, it’s going to be commonplace for a man and machine symbiosis to exist, and for this to exist in harmony with other people. As with making Louis XIII cognac, over time some of the tools or technology may change, but the goal of biotechnology remains the same – to improve the quality of life.
What do you think is the next frontier in medical research?
For diseases of the body, I’m extremely optimistic about the progress we’ve made. We’ve looked at a lot of new, pioneering technologies. For example, we’ve looked at a company that’s using spaceage technology to create stents to treat diseases of the heart, with a kind of origamistyle structure. There are gene therapies being developed to cure haemophilia and Parkinson’s disease. And there are real hopes for all of these treatments to really revolutionise the health paradigm for mankind. The brain, however, is on a completely different level.
I think the ultimate challenge will be diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s because of the vast complexity of the human brain. We’re only just beginning to grasp what causes these things.
How do you want to be remembered?
As having made a difference in helping to cure diseases and improve the quality of peoples’ lives. For more stories about the next 100 years, visit Gq.co.za. Brought to you by Louis XIII – the king of cognac.