Professor Harald Schmidt is a doctor, pharmacist, scientist and one of the leading visionaries for the future of medicine, systems medicine and healthcare innovation in Europe.
Harald Schmidt discusses why our current healthcare system is reaching its structural limits — and how precision medicine, artificial intelligence and cause-based disease models will fundamentally transform medicine, the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare systems.
As an internationally renowned doctor, pharmacist and scientist with experience in Germany, the USA, Australia and the Netherlands, he combines scientific excellence with strategic relevance for business, politics and healthcare systems.
As the author of ‘The End of Medicine as We Know It’ and a sought-after keynote speaker, Prof. Harald Schmidt speaks on the future of medicine, innovation in pharmaceuticals and biotech, precision medicine, AI, and the structural disincentives of today’s healthcare systems.
Prof. Harald Schmidt’s speaking topics
- The Future of Medicine
Why our current healthcare system is no longer sustainable
- AI, Systems Medicine and Precision Diagnostics
How new data models are redefining medicine
- Healing rather than treating
The paradigm shift from symptoms to causes
- Misaligned incentives in the healthcare system
Why innovation often fails due to systemic issues
- Innovation in Pharma and Biotech
How new scientific models are transforming therapeutic development
Prof. Harald Schmidt is the editor of a textbook on drug therapy, with a foreword and afterword by Eckart von Hirschhausen, who has also written an endorsement for his latest book. He conducted research alongside the future Nobel laureate Ferid Murad, and has led international teams, institutes and research centres in Germany, the USA, Australia and, currently, the Netherlands.
Prof. Harald Schmidt coordinates major European innovation programmes, including REPO4EU under Horizon Europe, and is regarded as one of the leading figures in systems medicine and network pharmacology.
Digitalisation in medicine – everyone is talking about it…
But the crisis in medicine runs much deeper, and so does its potential for innovation. The aim cannot simply be to digitalise the status quo in medicine. Nor is more investment in the healthcare system needed – quite the contrary. Digitalisation is not the key
As a critical analyst, Prof. Harald Schmidt recognised the broad conceptual crisis in medicine and became one of the pioneers of systems medicine – that is, a complete redefinition of what we actually call a ‘disease’, how we organise medicine, and how we use big data to heal rather than treat, to prevent rather than cure.
Harald Schmidt is a committed, sought-after panellist, podcaster, screencaster and founder of the German-language patientenwiewir.de platform.
His hobbies include sport – he was a football referee for many years – and social engagement, for example with Rotary International, particularly in support of the homeless, such as through the Homeless World Cup. Harald Schmidt is also interested in socially critical and political contemporary art; so much so that he has begun to build up a small body of work himself (realitychanges.de) and has held his first exhibitions.