Trustnet Magazine Issue 17 April 2016 | Page 19

/ BAILLIE GIFFORD / The benefits will be seen in the standard of care in cancer in the next five years, and in broader use in applying testing and treatments, at a pace we have only seen in the technology sector before their most valuable commodity; certainly the possibilities in data analysis are opening up rapidly. Companies such as Splunk, which specialises in analysing big data, and Palantir, which analyses data for security implications for governments and large corporations, are among the potential winners in this field, Slater believes. Elsewhere, as part of the current technological revolution, genomic science and gene therapies are taking us closer to the age of personalised medicine. “Illumina, which makes genetic testing kits, has driven down the cost of sequencing the human genome by a thousand-fold in a decade — astonishing,” Slater observes. He adds that the benefits will be seen “in the standard of care in cancer in the next five years, and in broader use in applying testing and treatments, and at a pace we have only seen in the technology sector before”. TRANSFORMING MEDICINE Illumina, whose share price increase has helped it to become trustnetdirect.com 17