Healthcare

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) must be better managed for patient care to improve. The protocols for monitoring patients are rapidly evolving. Historically, patients who fall ill are required to travel in order to visit a general practitioner or hospital. This procedure may soon become a thing of the past.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Wednesday 5 February 2020 titled Plant-Based and Cultured Meat: The Future of Meat Alternatives.

There is dramatic change in some industries, with leading printed electronics vendors moving quickly to capitalize on the new sought after capabilities. These opportunities will be addressed at the Printed Electronics Europe exhibition and conference in Berlin on 13 - 14 May (register by 23 January to save 40%).

Diagnosing CVD is the first step in patients' road to recovery. It is imperative to detect the disease early in order to administer treatment while it is still treatable. In addition, preventing the disease altogether is becoming more important in healthcare. The main approaches for detecting CVD are currently in vitro diagnostics (IVD) at point-of-care (POC) and the use artificial intelligence (AI) in cardiovascular imaging.

Central to any circular economy is polymer recycling. Current mechanical recycling processes face many issues from societal perceptions of recycling, to economic and technological barriers; however, there are a number of companies whose innovations are changing the face of polymer recycling. From IDTechEx's latest report, "Green Technology and Polymer Recycling: Market Analysis 2020-2030" by Dr Bryony Core, here is a rundown of some of these key companies.

2019 has been a big year for plant-based meat substitutes. Spurred on by consumer perceptions of healthiness and a global megatrend towards conscious consumptions, sales of plant-based meat grew by almost 40%, compared with 2017. In the three months after going public, plant-based burger maker Beyond Meat's share price surged by 500% and rival Impossible Foods secured an additional $300 million in funding.

Will the hamburgers of the future be made from animal cells grown in a lab instead of inside a cow? Cultured meat, also known as "cell-based" or "clean" meat, could soon be making its way to our dinner plates, completely bypassing the need for animal slaughter and overcoming some of the major environmental issues that currently plague the global agriculture industry. Even though no products have yet been released and there are major challenges with cost, regulation and scale up, the industry is growing rapidly, with investment reaching a new high in 2019.

IDTechEx is hosting a free webinar on Thursday 16 January 2020 titled Innovations in Cardiovascular Disease Management.

As developers' understanding of this disease grows, so will the range of devices at their disposal to address it. They have only scratched the surface of how technology can improve CVD patients' lives and, as they dig deeper, they will continue to unlock the potential of this growing market.

The idea of growing meat outside an animal has been around for a long time. In 1931, Winston Churchill wrote that by the 1980s "we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium." Although his timing was off by four decades, his predictions are beginning to materialise as the world looks for new ways to feed its burgeoning population whilst overcoming the environmental problems of conventional animal agriculture.