Healthcare is the new Internet, asserts David Randall and Christina Farr in Reuters —at least when it comes to technology investors and their money. Venture capital firms and portfolio managers of mutual funds are starting to invest in companies specializing in analyzing healthcare data, they report—with VC funding for healthcare technology up 176 percent this year.
“This trend is yet another example of investors finding new ways to invest in the thriving healthcare industry,” said partner Geoffrey Cockrell of McGuire Woods. These investments are a good way for investors who are wary of the risk in the industry, he said. Traditionally, companies associated with healthcare, such as biotech companies, have business models that centers on the development of a drug, he continued. Unlike those companies, healthcare data is capitalizing on the growth of electronic records.
Indeed, Randall and Farr report that though there can still be just as much risk in these investments as any others, the aging population in the U.S. and Europe—and the transition to digital health records—make it a particularly appealing industry. Categories of investments include: payer administration, digital medical devices, analytics and big data, healthcare consumer engagement, population health management, and personalized medicine, said Cockrell.
Back in May of this year there was a “Global Privacy Enforcement Sweep” conducted in 19 countries that assessed the transparency of 1,211 popular mobile applications. These results were published yesterday and according to a recent post on firm site Hunton & Williams, “a large majority of the apps are accessing personal data without providing adequate information to users.”
Specifically, the new information demonstrated a whopping 85 percent of mobile apps that were surveyed didn’t provide users with clear information on how they collected, processed and disclosed their data. In 59 percent of them it was difficult to find information on privacy before the apps were installed and once it was accessed, 43 percent of privacy notices weren’t tailored to the size of screens, according to the lawyers at Hunton & Williams.
“In light of these results, the data protection authorities that participated in the sweep are likely to launch enforcement actions in their jurisdictions,” say the Huntington & Williams lawyers. Most recently the Belgian data protection authority said they were speaking with stakeholders and getting ready to send cease and desist letters in certain severe cases.
