ASCO Shows iPad's Evolution

Jun 13, 2012

Author: Otto Akkerman

What a difference a year makes.

The exhibitor floor at ASCO 2011 could have passed for a giant Apple demonstration area.  Every pavilion was staffed with iPad rearing product representatives eager to lure clinicians with eye catching applications.  Brochures promoting custom apps were designed to look like iPhones  and iPads, even the flat screen multimedia
displays were encased in frames to mimic giant iPhones.

That was right for the time, only a year ago, when the iPad for use by clinicians was still novel enough that is was OK to be gimmicky with the device.

Fast forward 12 months to ASCO 2012.  Apple technology is still very much present but the gimmicky factor is gone (well almost gone – if you visited the Dendreon booth you know what I mean). Rather than show information on an iPad or show that information is available via app through the App Store and have the medium be
the message, Pharma companies have evolved with the clinicians.  The iPad and iPhone are just tools that support the more relevant tasks of peer communication, patient consultation, and practice management.  Pharma companies at this year’s ASCO understand that physicians are now more than ever incorporating the iPad into their practices with apps that do as much to support practice management as they do taking notes and storing patient data.

Will ASCO 2013 show that use of Apple technology is changing how physicians are treating certain cancers?  We’ll see.