Tech's Next Big Wave: Big Data Meets Biology

It Began in December, with CVS's proposed $69 billion buyout of insurer Aetna (aet). In January, three more corporate behemoths--Amazon (amzn), JPMorgan Chase (jpm), and Berkshire Hathaway (brk-a)--said they were forming a joint venture aimed at reducing health care costs and improving outcomes for their combined 1 million or so employees. Then, in March, Cigna (ci) said it would buy pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts for more than $50 billion. On first glance you might think it's merely the pursuit of mass itself. Of "scale," as management types like to say. But in truth, there's a more powerful catalyst--one so gargantuan and infinitesimal at the same time that it sounds like the answer to a riddle. More specifically, it's your data: your individual biology, your health history and ever-fluctuating state of well-being, where you go, what you spend, how you sleep, what you put in your body and what comes out. The amount of data you slough off everyday--in lab tests, medical images, genetic profiles, liquid biopsies, electrocardiograms, to name just a few--is overwhelming by itself.