The Next Billion-Dollar Opportunity in Health Care

After the 23andMe genetic test told me I have a higher-than-average risk of heart disease, I decided to purchase an elliptical machine and now use it every day. Then I noticed that half of my office is competing for how many steps they take each week, using FitBit activity trackers. And I just read that PatientsLikeMe, a social networking site for people with chronic conditions, has launched a platform for conducting low-cost clinical trials and other medical studies about treatments and behavior.

On first glance these startups seem unrelated to each other. But in a very basic way, they have something powerful in common: consumer-centered, personally generated health data. They are capturing a new opportunity that could be worth billions of dollars. For instance, 23andMe expects to complete 1 million gene scans this year alone. By 2017, 500 million personal health tracking sensors are expected to be sold annually.