Five Forces Driving the Life Science, Health and Wellness Industries In 2022
SUMMARY
Our strategists identified five trends that will shape our future and health in 2022.
From leveling up our wearables, to entering an era of holistic biology, to finding social cohesion again, 2022 will be an important year for wellness and healthcare as it integrates more seamlessly into our lives.
Year after year, health continues to dominate the conversations happening around every corner. Even at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, an annual show that sets the tone of innovation, health tech reigned the show, from wellness devices to at-home solutions.
With an eye on emergent companies that are shifting from traditional B2B or HCP-only models to direct to consumer (DTC) models, and our deep rooted in-category experience, we’ve identified five forces that we believe will shape the conversations around life science, health, and wellness in 2022.
Force #1: Direction Over Data
In the last three years, the number of connected wearable devices worldwide has more than doubled. We’re using wearables to track steps, monitor heart rates, and get suggestions on when to pause and take a breath. At our disposal, is a data dump of information that could transform our health and wellness. With consumers' questions shifting from “what’s my heart rate” to “What should I do if my heart rate is higher than average?”, they’re on the verge of rejecting the dump.
In a world where personal data is at our fingertips, it’s not simply about having the data. It’s about making meaning of it. Consumers are turning to health and tech leaders not for more data — but for more data interpretation.
Consumers are looking for meaning in the metrics. As patient-consumers become more data-literate and use even more health apps, they’re taking it to their doctors and broader HCP teams. They want more answers and validation to use the data they have from their wearables to transform their health and wellness or manage a chronic condition. Instead of fearing patient accumulated data, there’s an opportunity for healthcare professionals to embrace this moment and become curators of their patients’ health data.
Brands to watch: Oura Ring, Whoop, Galleri, Owlet, Noom
Force #2: Closing the Correlation Chasm
DNA. RNA. Proteins. Metabolites. Functional immune response. Today, we know more about these key facets of biology than ever before. But often the data from these different facets don't line up with each other the way they should. RNA transcripts call for specific proteins to be present, but functional screening shows a slightly different repertoire of proteins than what was encoded. This is the correlation chasm, and it holds a tremendous potential for discovery and application. We now possess the scientific knowledge, tools, datasets, computing power and imagination to learn about and engineer biology through a holistic view to close the correlation chasm. As science moves from an exclusive focus on DNA, RNA, or proteins to a more expansive view of why data is not lining up perfectly, we’ll see a shift from individual ‘omics’ to focusing on the correlation between them — and asking why they don’t correlate may hold the key to new discoveries.
Brands to watch: 10x Genomics, Berkeley Lights, Twist Bioscience, Isoplexis
Force #3: Help, Triage Me
Last year, we identified a trend we called, Hello, Dr. Consumer about the emerging role consumers are playing for their own health. Two years into a pandemic, and we’re now veteran Dr. Consumers, so what’s next? With more Dr. Consumer’s in every household, understanding at-home tests, diagnostics and medical devices is the new norm. But there’s still a need for better health education to meet the demands that Dr. Consumers’ are building up in the form of questions, confusion, anxiety and health literacy. Our Dr. Consumers need triage on what to do next.
At-home triage is the new table stakes for DTC and that looks like help at consumers’ fingertips. In an era of questions, how might the health and wellness ecosystem provide more answers, immediately to optimize care in the moment?
Brands to watch: Sydney Health, Sayana, Cerebral, Honor, Lemonaid, DocGo
Force #4: Patients at the Back Door
In 2021, we strongly believed in the idea that home will now become the center of health — the center of at-home tests, the center of getting better, the center for caregivers. A lot that used to happen at the doctor’s office is now happening on our couch. Between the long waits to get into a primary care office, or the hurdles for in-person care with mental health providers, consumers are doing what they can before even stepping out the door. Now that home is the center of health, the front door and access to health looks a little different. That’s why consumers are finding a new way to get the treatment and help they need for health and wellness, by going through the back door to either doing it themselves or finding non-traditional providers of care. Care at the back door of health is the new patient's journey from the couch to the corner pharmacy, which might even bypass the need to walk through the front door of a traditional doctor’s office again.
Brands to watch: Ro, Kit, CareCentrix, Virta Health, Forward, Truepill, CostPlusDrugs
Trend #5: The Haptic Community Comeback
This year will be marked by our ability to come back not as individuals but as a community. If the last few years have been marked by isolation, is this the year we find connection again?
We’ve gone from The Great Resignation to The Great Restructuring — it’s a moment in time marked by individual reflection in our role in broader society where a “me vs we” mentality feels second nature. After being in a pandemic for over two years, an article in Time phrased it best by saying, “Re-entry into polite society is proving to be a little bumpy,” a point made even more evident with trending TikTok’s of students stealing from their schools to adults being disrespectful to those in the service or hospitality industries. Society is at its own breaking point. That’s why this moment of social cohesion needs a blend of solutions. That’s why we think this new community will be haptic — a blend of online and offline interactions and experiences. By creating space for haptic moments that blend offline and online interactions, it will be easier for society to be together again. Brands that find a way to integrate haptic experiences and interactions will win hearts in 2022.
Brands to watch: Meta, Headspace