41◼ SOLUTIONS Bloomberg Businessweek July 22, 2019
Paul Drayson, born blind in one eye, has never forgotten the
treatment he received as a child from England’s National
Health Service, which provides free care to all residents.
Now, as the health program’s finances face increasing
pressure, Drayson, a former U.K. science minister, is
on a mission to help save the government-funded NHS
by selling access to patient data to drug and device
companies. “This country has to pay its way in the world,”
he says of the U.K. “How the NHS works with the global
life sciences industry is key to the health of the nation.”
Drayson founded Sensyne Health Plc, a for-profit
company that’s trying to get divisions of the NHS to agree
to put patient information, including DNA sequences, into
a large database. Over its 71-year history, the NHS has
collected records on its patients and, in recent years,
launched an intensive drive to collect and use patients’
DNA data for care and research. Sensyne’s initial target
is to gather information on 5 million NHS patients;
ultimately, Drayson says, he would like to have access
to the data on all 55 million members. According to aTurning the U.K.’s
Health Data Into Gold
A plan to funnel cash into the
National Health Service by selling
access to patient datathemedicineworked to control Hahla’s pain, it left her
unsteadyonherfeet, and eventually she started hav-
ingmemoryproblems again. Ultimately, Hahla decided
thatwasworsethan the pain, and after consulting with
herdoctorinOslo,she stopped taking Vimpat. She dis-
tractsherselfwithwalks along the fjord and movie out-
ingswithfriends.“I’d much rather have a life that I could
enjoythanbeonthese pills,” she says.
Todullherfootpain now, Hahla cools her feet on
thebathroomtilesbefore going to bed, then tries to fall
asleepbeforetheywarm up again. And on bad days,
shesimplystayshome. “I just close my door,” she says.
�NaomiKresgenerve cells in the lab. It’s challenging research: You can’t
cut a nerve out of a living person to study without doing
lasting damage. In Texas, Price has obtained some from
cancer patients who underwent a rare spine surgery.
Others, like the German team that helped Hahla, are cre-
ating nerve cells in a petri dish. The goal is to experiment
directly on human tissue. “Pain is such a complex experi-
ence,” says Angelika Lampert, a physiology professor at
Germany’s Aachen University who found the treatment
for Hahla. Pain doesn’t happen in the neurons that detect
stimulus, she says—“it’s really an experience in the brain.”
And sometimes miracle cures aren’t all they seem
to be. The pill Lampert’s team gave Hahla was an epi-
lepsymedicinecalledVimpat,madebyBelgiandrug-
maker UCBSA. Its side effects helped to kill its
prospects as a pain medicine more than a decade ago.
UCB didn’t respond to requests for comment. And whileTHE BOTTOM LINE With opioids a double-edged solution, startups are
looking for more targeted therapies to help treat chronic pain; while the
treatments may take decades to develop, scientists are inching closer.