Sol Magaz, Partner, Life Sciences and Healthcare in EY, joins Kopi Time to discuss her area of expertise. We begin by discussing  how the sector reacted and adjusted to the pandemic, both in the West and here in Asia. Sol explains the disruptions and innovations through the use of advanced data analytics and practices that allowed for vaccines and therapeutics to be developed in record time. We focus on the digital legacy of this crisis, whether it is through tele-diagnostics or tele-therapeutics, or through synthetic trials. We then talk about other mega trends in the industry and the role of Asian countries in the global innovation space. We touch upon the leap-frog aspect of digital transformation in healthcare, where people in rural areas can get access to healthcare through their smartphones, care that was previously only provided when and if hospitals were built nearby. We end by discussing the soaring cost of healthcare and ways to address them from public and private angles.