THE OUTLOOK: Q&A
Diagnosis: Healthy Growth Dr. Trevor L. Hawkins on leading the new HP 200A organization and the potential for microfluidics technology to disrupt the health and wellness industry.
J
OINING HP JUST AS a global pandemic caused a
global lockdown was a challenge Dr. Trevor L. Hawkins did not see coming, but leading HP’s brand-new health technology group was also an unexpected turn in his long career. After running the Human Genome Project for the US Department of Energy in the 1990s, working at a series of multinational corporations like GE, Philips, and Siemens, and starting and selling his own healthcare diagnostics company, he was content sitting on a few boards and consulting. He thought he was done with corporate life, he says, when HP came calling. 1 / What brought you to HP at this point in your career? It took Glen [Hopkins, then Interim Chief Technology Officer] about four months to convince me to even talk. When we finally had coffee, my eyes were opened to the fact that HP had some very neat technologies, specifically the microfluidics skill sets, that could be applied, potentially, to healthcare. It was the people, the technology, the skills, and the attitude and culture of HP that made me change my mind. I joined as a part-time consultant; that very quickly morphed into being a full-time consultant, and then a full-time employee. And it was really based on the power of the technology.
3 / What are some of the big trends
shaping the future of health technology? You are going to see the entire health and wellness sector transformed in the coming years. Big shifts were already under way, and they have been accelerated by COVID-19. Diagnostic testing is one example. People want technologies that are simple, easy, and cheap and can be used in different locations. They don’t want to go into a hospital to get a test, and they want to be able to get as many tests as they need. Being able to manufacture at a scale that meets the demand is really important. Then there is the issue of trust. People want their data to be secure and only shared with the right groups that allow them to make the right decisions. All these things will drive entirely new solutions that make testing more distributed, accessible, and consumer-friendly. 4 / How will it change the way testing
2 / The famous HP200A (a low distortion audio oscillator) was
the first product made in Dave Packard’s garage in Palo Alto in 1939. Why is that your team’s name? Calling it HP 200A was symbolic. It got people excited and inspired to create new breakthroughs. And in many cases, it brought us back to where our founders began. We have people across the company who have literally been doing research and development in their own garages because we were all working from home. Much of our early development was done by people building and testing systems, using 3D printing systems and so on. One of our engineers used a VR headset to turn his garage into a lab so that he could actually experience the environment he was building for. The teams really took on how Hewlett and Packard started this company, and the way in which they have worked and interacted is incredible.
is done? We see a future where healthcare diagnostics are as pervasive as Starbucks, and there are examples of that already. You can go to a pharmacy and buy over-the-counter diagnostic tests for a growing list of chronic diseases and infectious diseases. Once you have a platform capable of rapid, low-cost, easy-to-use testing, it can be applied to a number of different sectors, such as infectious disease, oncology, and wellness. We also are looking at the emerging area of personalized medicine. There is a growing list of drugs on the market that require
HP / INNOVATION / SPRING 2021 10