Health And Technology Areas To Watch In 2025

Jill Collins, CEO, Chief Strategy Officer, Audacity Health.

Much of the other forecasting I’ve seen so far this year centers on uncertainty. There’s a lot to feel uncertain about. Climate change is already making itself felt, with devastating, unseasonal weather patterns. The new U.S. presidential administration seems to take a very different approach to science, technology and business than the prior one did. In times like these, instead of trying to make educated guesses about our future, it might be more useful to reexamine highlights from the recent past and things to keep an eye on in 2025.

Last year was an exciting one for both scientific and technology advancements, including new breakthroughs in autoimmune disease and expanding indications for GLP-1 drugs, as well as fine-tuning of AI tools and new applications across the board.

Long-Awaited Progress Is Happening In The Autoimmune Space

One area where I have a lot of optimism about the future is autoimmune disease research. Much like cancer, autoimmune diseases are a highly complex set of diseases that involve one’s own body turning against itself, which adds a challenge to both understanding and treating them. Because we have lacked a full understanding of autoimmune disease mechanisms and control levers, it has been challenging to develop novel therapeutics.

While treatment in this space has felt fairly stagnant for the past few decades, recent years have seen the fruition of a robust pipeline of new research and drugs, which means we are poised for a period of rapid acceleration. Research published in Nature Reviews Rheumatology names a potential control mechanism for disease, presenting a new drug research target for pharmaceutical companies. At the same time, we’re seeing an exciting wave of iteration around CAR-T cell therapy as a potential way to treat and possibly even cure some autoimmune responses. GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic and Wegovy, which first gained traction as weight-loss drugs, also seem to have promising interactions with various autoimmune conditions (among their many other benefits). This new class of drugs in particular seems to offer an abundance of new possibilities, and it is exciting to see all of the novel applications take shape.

AI Is Expanding And Clarifying Its Place Within Healthcare

In health and biotech, almost all work or research that involves large datasets almost necessarily makes use of machine learning. One area where we’re seeing innovative use of AI is drug discovery, where it is possible to predict and map protein folding and structure with such open-source tools as AlphaFold. This has prompted a bit of a gold rush, with a variety of companies popping up to fill this new space. Protein structure prediction and analysis have been a core component of drug discovery for many years, and I think we’re likely to see how recent AI advancements can further accelerate progress in this field.

We’re also seeing an expansion of AI into the patient experience of healthcare. It seems like every day I see new services that support patient-to-health-system interactions. We’re even seeing programs that support patient-doctor decision making. It’s exciting to think that AI could serve as a digital second opinion, analyzing the patient’s clinical data and triangulating it with guideline-recommended, regulatory-approved and reimbursable options to put forth the best recommendations.

US Politics Will Be Felt Throughout The Biotech Sector

We’re likely to see the push and pull of conflicting impulses within the new presidential administration. The Food and Drug Administration has specifically been named as a target of the new administration for deregulation of medical devices. This administration will also likely mark a strong pivot in the ongoing pharmaceutical pricing negotiations.

U.S. foreign policy hangs over the biotech space in more ways than one. There is currently a power struggle within the new administration over skilled worker visas, and promised tariffs against major trading partners are starting to take shape. Facing both labor pool and supply chain disruption is likely to create a tough test for companies within biotech in the short term. We are likely to see an uptick in interest in domestic manufacturing capabilities, which will be helpful not only for companies that wish to avoid price uncertainty but also for those that wish to have more control over quality assurance and intellectual property.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are another area where societal shifts are likely to impact biotech, but it is worth making a distinction between diversity initiatives for hiring and diversity initiatives for research. We’re in a moment where diversity initiatives in clinical trials are critical, advancing medicine and driving breakthroughs that help improve drug efficacy for more people. Historically, genomic datasets have predominately come from those of European descent, which has created biases and limitations for therapeutic efficacy in various populations. Diverse clinical trial populations are a way to capture more information about the drug’s true clinical profile and safeguard the integrity and applicability of any new medical product.

When In Doubt, Trust In Data

This is as much of a mantra for myself as it is words of wisdom for any other prognosticators out there. This year is already shaping up to be a time of change. Whether we’re making decisions about exciting new technologies or evaluating a shifting political climate, I’m always going to be a proponent of using data and the scientific method as your guide.

This means using solid data (whether scientific from product development, a clinical study or industry insights from market research) to guide your decisions and path forward instead of making assumptions about the forecasts ahead. Don’t make decisions based on speculation about what the new administration and industry changes will entail—wait and see what actually happens or materializes before you judge how to navigate the new terrain.

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