Later, as I pondered the increasing obsolescence of old terms, I begin to discern both a proximate and ultimate cause. As we see every day, each successful innovation encourages another imitation while, at the same time, making the next innovation harder still. The result is that it has become harder and harder to build a better mousetrap, or at least one that value-conscious payers will accept. As a result, pharma and other life sciences companies have increasingly shifted to a value, rather than product, orientation.  And, increasingly, the only way to develop a valuable innovation is not to create a better product but to create a more valuable product combination. This is true in almost every part of our industry. Soon, dumb inhalers and injectors will be archaic. Diagnostic devices are increasingly part of the ‘internet of things’. The future of many therapies lies in following oncology and targeting specific genotypes. And, if not genotype-specific, many treatments are guided by companion diagnostics looking for biomarkers. In chronic diseases, it is hard to find a therapy for which an enabling app is not being developed. In oncology, CAR-T therapies involve such complex approaches that they can hardly just be called drugs anymore.

Even simpler therapies are increasingly trying to add value, with drug delivery systems such as microneedle patches or nanotechnology. Stepping back from the detail of all these technologies, we can see that the need to add value, and the corresponding combination products, are respectively the ultimate and proximate reasons that the old terminology no longer fits.

This pattern of change in our industry has parallels in others. We still refer to ‘shipping’ things that never go near the sea, for example. We still call financial institutions ‘banks’, even when storing money is a tiny part of their role today. And we still refer to parts of the media as ‘the press’, although most of them have never seen metal type. So, it seems likely that the terms we use to label our industry will change more slowly than the industry itself.

We may still be calling companies ‘pharma’ when their gene therapies hardly count as pharmaceuticals. I expect we will still call companies ‘diagnostics’ when their product is at least as much therapeutic. And we will probably still have a ‘medical device business’ even when their devices are nothing more than substrates for their information technology or for delivering a drug. Pharma and other industry terms may still be used but, like ‘pulling the chain’, may get you funny looks from your kids.