Monday, December 29, 2014

Fwd: dissolving national borders




-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: dissolving national borders
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 11:11:59 -0800
From: Peter Diamandis <peter@diamandis.com>
Reply-To: peter@diamandis.com
To: Steve <stevescott@techacq.com>


Besides your passport, what really defines your nationality these days?

Is it where you were live? Where you work? The language you speak? The currency you use?

If it is, then we may see the idea of "nationality" quickly dissolve in the decades ahead.

Language, currency and residency are rapidly being disrupted and dematerialized by technology.

Here's how.

Where you live, where you work…

Increasingly, technological developments will allow us to live and work almost anywhere on the planet... (and even beyond).

Soon, you'll be able to live in the Greek Islands and work in Manhattan, London, and Los Angeles.

Telepresence & Virtual Environments

Today I use telepresence robots to telecommute around the globe, attend an XPRIZE meeting in India, or if I'm overseas, pop home for breakfast or dinner with my kids.

The product I personally use comes from Suitable Technology and is called the "Beam." I have about 15 beams across my different companies, and I'll be integrating another 20 beams into my Abundance 360 Summit this January 25-27 so that some of the participants on the waiting list can attend virtually.

Beyond these telepresence technologies, the biggest impact on dematerializing nationality will come from development of fully immersive, high fidelity, virtual worlds. Virtual workplaces you plug into using VR gear to interact with other virtual workers (perhaps even A.I.'s) on a daily basis.

The earliest example of a virtual world where people were "living" and "working" is Phillip Rosedale's Second Life.

You can think of it as a proof of concept, an early prototype of what is coming.

Think of it as pong, compared to today's video games.

Even as rudimentary as Second Life is today, its annual revenues have reached US$567 million, and since its inception, it has transacted over US$3.5 Billion as people build and sell virtual products in this virtual world. Not bad…

But what is coming next will be transformational.

With the creation of new VR technologies (Oculus Rift technology, Samsung Gear) and 360-degree camera technology (Immersive Media, Jaunt), we'll be able to slide on a pair of Goggles and "go" anywhere in the real and virtual world.

Companies will forgo bricks and mortar, and instead allow its work-force, from around the world, to beam into the same environment and work cooperatively. Think about a 'kinder-gentler ' version of the Matrix.

What language you speak…

We are headed toward a world where everyone will have the tools to speak every language, in real time.

Right now, Google Translate does a damn good job. The system built by Franz Och at Google over the last decade can now support translation between 80 language pairs. (Note: Franz is now heading machine learning at Human Longevity Inc, where he is helping to translate between the languages of genetics, phenotype and metabolome.

In 2013, Google stated that Translate served 200 million people, daily.

Another more recent example of simultaneous translation, this time between spoken word is Skype's recently announced "Live Translate."

Skype's embedded artificial intelligence promises to translate your voice into another language in close to real-time while you are video-Skyping someone else on the other side of the planet (right now, it only serves English/Spanish translations).

The bottom line: Star Trek universal translator is here and it's going to be a game-changer.

What currency you use…

Decentralized, unregulated cryptocurrencies (like bitcoin) will make it MUCH easier to trade and transact both across and within borders.

While this year hasn't been so great for bitcoin, the fact is, cryptocurrencies are here to stay and will find more and more useful applications.

Take the recent Russian ruble crisis for example.

In Q4 2014, the ruble had a rapid devaluation due to political instability and the crashing price of oil, ending up at a 14-year low.

So what happened?

Russians have started pouring money into bitcoin.

In mid-December 2014, CNBC reported, "Transaction volumes between the ruble and digital currency bitcoin enjoyed their biggest day of the year. This was close to a 250 percent increase in transactions."

Bitcoin dematerializes the banks, and demonetizes transaction fees. It is global and unregulated. And it is easy to use.

With these characteristics, we will see a shift away from national currencies toward global cryptocurrencies that provide some level of stability and independence from your country's political turmoil, or whether your country's GDP is based on oil exports.

Consequences for the Entrepreneur/CEO

We live in the most exciting time ever.

In my mind, a borderless world will be a more creative, lucrative, healthy, and frankly, exciting one.

Especially for entrepreneurs.

A world where you, as an entrepreneur can now become a 'multinational corporation', accessing 5 billion potential customers.

I have a team that works with me to research and study these meta-trends.

I've decided to create a digital extension of my Executive Mastermind.

This is digital mastermind called Abundance 360 Digital (or A360D) where entrepreneurs (like you), can get monthly on-line access to the knowledge, resources and tools resulting from exponential technologies, crowd-related tools (incentive competitions, crowdfunding, etc.) and moonshot thinking.

A360D will aim to connect you with other bold and abundance-minded entrepreneurs, and to connect you with me on a monthly basis for discussion around these topics.

I'll be rolling out A360D in early 2015. If you'd like me to send you more info then submit your name and email here.

Happy holidays & happy New Year.

Peter

P.S. Every weekend I send out a "Tech Blog" like this one. If you want to sign up, go to PeterDiamandis.com and sign up for this and my Abundance blogs.

P.P.S. Please forward this to your best clients, colleagues and friends — especially those who could use some encouragement as they pursue big, bold dreams.


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Sunday, December 21, 2014

Fwd: know anything you want, anytime, anywhere




-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: know anything you want, anytime, anywhere
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 12:47:19 -0800
From: Peter Diamandis <peter@diamandis.com>
Reply-To: peter@diamandis.com
To: Steve <stevescott@techacq.com>


We're heading towards a world of perfect knowledge.

Soon you'll be able to know anything you want, anytime, anywhere, and query that data for answers and insights.

Why is this happening? And what are the implications? These are the questions this blog will explore. It's also one of the meta-trends I'm discussing with my digital mastermind group (Abundance 360 Digital).

An explosion of ubiquitous, omnipresent cameras

The first digital camera built by Kodak in 1976 was a 0.01 Megapixel camera.

It was the size of a toaster and cost thousands of dollars.

Today's digital cameras are 1 billion times better.

In a decade, they will be 1 trillion times better.

Where is ubiquitous imaging/sensing heading?

LiDAR imagery from Google's              autonomous car project

Image Above: LiDAR imagery from Google's autonomous car project

  • Imaging from our streets: Fleets of autonomous cars will image everything in and around our roads, constantly. A single Google Autonomous car using LiDAR (laser imaging radar) generates over 1.3 million points per second (750 Mbits/sec of data) in a "360° view" (see image below).
  • Imaging from space: Today there are three private orbital satellite constellations with two more being planned soon. These near-real time imaging services from space are offering 0.5 meter to 5 meter resolution of any spot on the planet, with video and multi-spectral options.
  • Imaging from our skies: Beyond orbiting satellites, we will soon have armies of drones flying above our streets imaging the ground at centimeter resolution.
  • Imagine from our sidewalks: Whatever Google Glass becomes, we'll see a future where people walk around with always-on, active cameras that image everything on our streets, at millimeter resolution.

NOTE: These are examples just from the realm of ubiquitous imaging sensors. Beyond this, there will be an explosion of audio/vibration, genomics and biometrics sensors, to name just a few.

In the decade ahead, we're heading towards a trillion-sensor world. In 2013, we generated 4 zettabytes (4x1021bytes) of data. Data generation is doubling every two years and accelerating. By 2020 we'll be up to 44 zettabytes (i.e. 44 trillion gigabytes).

Then, with the power of machine learning, data science, increased computational power, and global connectivity we can process, learn from, explore, and leverage that information to ask and answer almost any question.

Questions we will be able to ask, and get answered…

Who caused that accident? While autonomous cars are unlikely to crash (bad news for the insurance industry), accidents caused by human-driven cars on the road will never be mysteries again. Imagery from LIDAR or equivalent sensors will tell you exactly who caused the accident and how.

How's my competitor performing? Orbital satellite imaging can tell you exactly how many cars were in competitor's parking lot last weekend. Which locations attract more shoppers? What is the status of your competitor's supply chain – raw materials in, and finished products out?

Where did that gunshot come from? ShotSpotter, a gunfire detection technology gathers data from a network of acoustic sensors placed throughout a city, filters the data through an algorithm to isolate the sound of gunfire, triangulates the location within about ten feet, then reports it directly to the police. It's more accurate than info from 911 callers.

What is the most popular dress color Friday night in Manhattan? Want to know the fashion trends in your city? You will be able to gather images and mine them to determine the most popular colors and fashions on any street, mall or borough.

What is the prevalence of heart disease or Alzheimer's in my neighborhood? This may sound disgusting, but imagine sampling the sewage coming out of your neighborhood. By analyzing the DNA in biological waste in those pipes, you can tell the prevalence of one disease over another in that community. Do you think that might be of interest to a health or life insurance company?

Who are the happiest people in the U.S.? Researchers from the University of Vermont used Mechanical Turk to rank thousands of words by "happiness" levels. They then wrote an algorithm that analyzed 10 million tweets, used the Mechanical Turk data as a training set, and determined which are the happiest U.S. states (Hawaii) and the saddest (Louisiana). They could even explore semantic trends down to the zip-code.

Show's Happiness by              Geography for U.S. and Chicago, IL

Image Above: Shows Happiness by Geography for U.S. and Chicago, IL

Consequences for the Entrepreneur/CEO – A360 Digital

I think about this stuff a lot.

We live in the most exciting time ever.

As we move towards a world of perfect information, we are going to be disrupting many industries and creating even more entrepreneurial business opportunities.

Which industries are going to change because of this data revolution?

All of them.

If you'd like to join me in these discussions around technologies and meta-trends, I am creating a digital Mastermind group called Abundance 360 Digital.

A360D is developed specifically for entrepreneurs (like you), to provide you with monthly access to the knowledge and tools resulting from exponential technologies, moonshot/abundance thinking and crowd-related tools.

If you'd like me to send you more info on A360D, submit your name and email here.

Happy Holidays,
Peter


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Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Fwd: G. Steven Burrill Issues Annual Predictions for the Biotechnology Industry




-------- Original Message --------
Subject: G. Steven Burrill Issues Annual Predictions for the Biotechnology Industry
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 08:47:25 -0500 (EST)
From: Burrill Media LLC <news@b-c.com>
Reply-To: news@b-c.com
To: stevescott@techacq.com



 

G. Steven Burrill Issues Annual Predictions for the Biotechnology Industry
Focus to shift from promise to execution in 2015

 

 

SAN FRANCISCO-DECEMBER 16, 2014-As the end of 2014 approaches, a year of unprecedented financial activity and dealmaking for the biotechnology industry, biotech visionary G. Steven Burrill issued his annual predictions for the life sciences in the new year.

Burrill, CEO of Burrill LLC and Burrill Media, says that though the biotechnology industry will likely see the capital markets slow somewhat in 2015, the new year is still expected to be one of solid performance by any traditional measure. At the same time, as the money that's been raised in 2014 gets deployed, the pace of innovation will increase, as will pressure from payers on pricing as the transformation of healthcare accelerates around the world. 


"The unprecedented IPO and M&A activity this year will make 2014 one for the record books and unlikely to ever be surpassed," says Burrill. "While we expect 2015 to be another strong year for the sector with robust financial markets and dealmaking, we do expect financing activity to slow as companies put to work all of the money that's been raised. But with important new drugs expected to be approved, attention will shift to away from the promise of companies to how well they execute."


PREDICTIONS

Capital Markets

IPOs
By the end of November 2014, 126 life sciences companies globally completed initial public offerings during the year raising nearly $10.4 billion (101 of those deals raised a combined $8.7 billion on U.S. exchanges). We expect another strong year for the IPO market in 2015, but it will be more like 2013 when a total of 49 companies completed IPOs on U.S. exchanges to raise $6.8 billion. One difference to look for in 2015 is greater activity on foreign exchanges as strengthening economies, rising markets, and companies in Europe and Asia raise money at home. In 2015 there will be 50 to 60 U.S. IPOs and 30 to 40 IPOs on overseas exchanges.

Fundraising
By the end of November, total global financings for the life sciences industry rose to $81.9 billion, just slightly ahead of the $79.5 billion raised during the same period the previous year. We expect 2015 to be a strong year for financings with growing activity in Asia and Europe, but down modestly from the level of activity seen this year.

Private Financings

Global venture capital investment in the life sciences reached $15.3 billion in the first 11 months of 2014, up from $11.5 billion during the same period the previous year. Venture investors are flush with new funds and are recycling capital thanks to the IPO and M&A activity of recent years. We expect 2015 to be a banner year for venture investment, but we'll also see a continued migration away from seed and early-stage biotechs that may be more than 10 years away from revenue. Increased capital will flow to new types of healthcare companies that leverage digital technologies to improve efficiency in the healthcare system, lead to new types of patient monitoring and early interventions, leverage data available to improve health, and transform access and delivery models.


Mergers and Acquisitions
Global M&A activity for the life sciences reached $340.8 billion in 2014, up from just $118.3 in 2013. Though changes in U.S. policy that remove incentives for using acquisitions to shift headquarters of U.S. companies to countries with lower tax rates will slow the so-called "inversions," we expect the brisk pace of M&A activity to continue as Big Pharma refreshes its pipelines through acquisitions. Look for 2015 to include some marquee companies in big dollar transactions. Companies will continue to buy, rather than build, to strengthen pipelines and grow revenues.


Partnering
The past year has been a good one for partnering with total potential deal values in the first 11 months rising to $47.9 billion from $35 billion during the same period a year ago. As with M&A activity, the trend toward externalization of R&D and the need for companies to look outside of their own walls for promising products will sustain activity. Despite some notable large upfront payments for highly desired experimental drugs, the bulk of payments will continue to be tied to commercial success.


Payers

Payers will continue to push back on the growing share of prescription drug spending that specialty pharmaceuticals represent. Payers will seek to create competition among drugmakers to lower prices, but drugs that provide unique benefit will continue to command high prices. The remarkable success of Gilead Sciences hepatitis C drug Sovaldi reshapes the conversation around pricing from questions of value to affordability. As a range of new regenerative medicine therapies move toward market and treatments give way to cures, there will be growing experimentation in payment models as questions over the durability of such therapies will be raised and there will be efforts to better link payment to performance. Moving from chronic care to cures will be the biotech industry's greatest contribution, and we'll see more of that in 2015.

Payers will also push back on a growing number of genomic based diagnostics that are aimed at stratifying patients, optimizing therapies, and improving outcomes. They will demand data that provide clear understanding of the utility and value of these tests. Right now, they are overwhelmed with trying to make sense of the value proposition of all the new generation diagnostics.


Healthcare

U.S. politics will continue to be characterized by partisanship as the Republican majorities in the House and Senate will look to dismantle unpopular aspects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Obama Administration's landmark healthcare reform legislation. With the power of the veto in President Obama's hands, serious threats to the law are more likely to come from the judiciary rather than the legislative branch. A decision to come in 2015 in King v. Burwell, a case that challenges the legality of tax credits to people who purchased health insurance in 34 states that did not establish their own health exchanges under the law, could affect care to 4.5 million people. In emerging markets, though, the healthcare systems of the future will begin to emerge as rapid change will be enabled by new technology. Rather than modernizing existing structures and technology to meet their needs, these systems are being built around new digital technologies that will provide decentralized models of delivery and capitalize on mobile and point-of-care diagnostics.

Biosimilars
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yet to resolve some of the questions about how it will handle biosimilars, but the industry isn't waiting. Biosimilars represent an area of important growth in global markets and drugmakers are starting to push through applications in the United States, even as the FDA has issues to address. We expect 2015 to be a year when biosimilars begin to gain traction in the market, especially globally.  Though the impact of biosimilars on biotechnology companies with branded products will be less dramatic than competition from generic drugs represented for Big Pharma companies, it will begin to exert pressure on companies as the biotech industry is approaching its own patent cliff. This will drive M&A and licensing activity as well for these companies. This pressure will accelerate in the next several years as the number of biosimilars grows and confidence in their safety and efficacy leads to broad acceptance.

Regulatory
Look for pressures on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ease the regulatory burden on drugmakers and find ways to accelerate the movement of drugs through the clinic and to the market. With Republican majorities in the House and Senate, momentum behind the 21st Century Cures Initiative, and the start of discussion on renewal of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, the industry will be focused on forging a more industry-friendly regulatory agency and have the backing in Congress to do so.

Innovative Therapies
The arrival of cancer immunotherapies, gene therapy, and regenerative medicines represents a rapidly growing trend away from treating symptoms of disease to enlisting the body's own mechanism's to fight disease, repair itself, and in some cases provide cures.
 
Data
Drugmakers, payers, and providers will step up their investment in data analytics as they come to see that the key to competitive success will lie in their ability to gather, integrate, and analyze multiple, large datasets to drive decision making.  

Genomics
There will be a major shift away from next generation sequencing as a platform technology to the technology as a service as companies will make big investments to refine the genomics toolbox to use the technology as diagnostic tests.

Diagnostics
The increase in genomics will present challenges to assimilate the news discoveries and development tools. Look for more point-of-care diagnostics as technologies are used to speed and simplify tests.

National Institutes of Health
Budgets for research will continue to be under pressure from Congress. This will come as other governments around the world step-up efforts to fund R&D, increase their economic competitiveness, and encourage home grown entrepreneurship. We also expect continued pressure on the budget of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Global Markets
Drug and device companies will look to new markets in Asia where there will be robust growth and growing demand for innovative therapies as economic prosperity grows and spreads in these countries. With the historical U.S./Europe/Japan triumvirate getting all of the focus in prior generations, the new generation of companies will focus on China, non-China Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and individual countries with large populations and increased healthcare spending.

 

 

Summary
Overall, 2015 will be a banner year for the industry with an increased capital base, exciting new products, and expanding global needs.

 

About Burrill, LLC

Burrill. LLC is a life sciences/healthcare focused firm focused exclusively on company building, using its almost 50 years of experience capital, network capital, and expertise to help build the next generation of life science leaders. Burrill's global relationships with healthcare/life science leaders worldwide is without peer, providing Burrill portfolio companies and clients with sustainable competitive advantage.

Burrill Media is Burrill's information, intelligence, and insight business, publishing monthly, quarterly and annually developments in the life sciences/healthcare ecosystem. Burrill Media also hosts meetings and events for the life sciences/healthcare industry.


Contact:

Daniel Levine

Levine Media Group

(510) 280-5405

danny@levinemediagroup.com




 
 
 
 
 

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