How health care is turning into a consumer product

TECH ANDAIAI health care have a fraught relationship. On January 3rd Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, a startup that once epitomised the promise of combining Silicon Valley’s dynamism with a stodgy health-care market, about the capabilities of her firm’s blood-testing technology. Yet look beyond Theranos, which began to implode back in 2015, and a much healthier story becomes apparent. This week a horde of entrepreneurs and investors gathered virtually at the annual JPMorgan Chase health-care jamboree. Top of mind was artificial intelligence (), digital diagnostics and tele-health—and of a new wave of capital flooding into a vast industry.Clunky, costly, highly regulated health systems, often dominated by rent-seeking middlemen, are being shaken up by firms that target patients directly, meet them where they are—which is increasingly online—and give them more control over how to access care. Scientific advances in fields such as gene sequencing and make new modes of care possible. E-pharmacies fulfil prescriptions, wearable devices in real time, connect patients with physicians, and home tests enable self-diagnosis.