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Tech-driven precision medicine, long-acting injectables, “climate-sensitive” vaccines, and mRNA therapeutics for non-communicable diseases were among the topics of discussion at this week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
“Misinformation” is also high on this year’s agenda. The WEF’s Global Risks Report 2025, released alongside this year’s annual meeting, named misinformation as the greatest global risk over the next two years.
President Donald Trump, in a speech to WEF participants on Thursday, said “misinformation” is a label used to censor people.
The meeting, held in Davos, Switzerland, focused on artificial intelligence (AI), as reflected by this year’s theme, “A Call for Collaboration in the Intelligent Age.” Over 350 governmental figures, 60 national leaders and 1,600 business leaders attended.
This year’s meeting was relatively subdued compared to previous years. Several key global figures, including the leaders of the U.K., China, France, India and Italy, were absent from the event, as were prominent figures like Bill Gates.
Pfizer CEO promotes AI-driven precision treatments to target cancer
Speaking Thursday during the “Technology in the World” panel, sponsored by the WEF’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said advancements in digital technology and biotechnology “are colliding” with “tremendous synergistic effects.”
Bourla said this could lead to the development of precision medicine to cure diseases like cancer. He said AI can help develop “something like a GPS-guided missile: a medicine that is very precise,” which could target specific cancer cells.
One of the most important uses of AI will be in precision medicine.. but also in mobility and getting around. Two leading CEOs on this @pfizer CEO Bourla and @Uber CEO @dkhos .. Khosrowshahi stresses how autonomous driving will be safer and will “get better and better and better” pic.twitter.com/Yd443NUTs6
— Mina Al-Oraibi (@AlOraibi) January 23, 2025
This “guided missile” would help facilitate the design of antibodies that would target the cancer cells, and a “warhead” — presumably a vaccine, although Bourla did not use this term — that will then kill those cells.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration endorsed the Stargate Initiative, focused partly on mRNA-based health solutions powered by AI.
During the same panel, Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of AI startup Anthropic, said it “is not at all crazy” to think that AI could double the human lifespan within “five to 10 years.” Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Google, said the company is looking beyond tech to become “the leader in science and innovation.”
Speaking as part of the “Health and Prosperity through Prevention” panel, Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said patients may soon be administered “long-acting injectable prep” semi-annually to treat those diseases.
Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Peter Sands, discusses “long-acting injectable prep” semi-annual medication pic.twitter.com/0MoWtTUGZq
— Syd Fizzard 🍁 (@SydFizzard) January 22, 2025
Sands said “long-acting injectable prep” is “functionally equivalent to a short-acting, 100% effective vaccine. You take it every six months.”
During the same session, Vas Narasimhan, CEO of pharma giant Novartis, said “RNA therapeutics” could be administered annually or semi-annually to treat a range of non-communicable diseases. He said:
“Healthcare systems are likely not prepared for the onslaught that diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, cancer will place.
“What I think is really exciting is that now we’re entering an era or actually already in an era where technology can actually solve many of these problems … with RNA therapeutics, we’re actually entering now a world where you can give these medicines maybe once every twice a year, maybe once a year.”
Also during the same session, Sania Nishtar, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, said that half of the vaccines in Gavi’s portfolio are “climate-sensitive.”
“We do not carry the climate sensitive disease label very visibly, but the fact of the matter is that 50% of our vaccines are deeply relevant to climate-sensitive diseases,” Nishtar said. She added that “difficult pockets of vaccination” in “climate change-afflicted regions” must be addressed.
Gavi Vaccine Alliance CEO, Sania Nishtar, says half of their vaccines are relevant to climate sensitive diseases, and that they are trying to hone their routine immunization systems pic.twitter.com/gm0HCOpy5r
— Syd Fizzard 🍁 (@SydFizzard) January 22, 2025
Gavi is an international public-private partnership promoting vaccination, established in 1999 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation holds one of the four permanent seats on Gavi’s board and helps fund the organization.
Participants at this year’s meeting said the success of technology-driven healthcare innovations is contingent on incorporating lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and overcoming obstacles like vaccine hesitancy.
Bourla referred to the “massive backlash” against the COVID-19 vaccine, saying It was “maybe 10, 20% of the people.” He noted that “AI also will face the same problems” and that AI technology “will spread the disinformation about it.”
“Every single mistake that AI will be doing … will be magnified to the ultimate degree, ignoring that humans are making even bigger mistakes and ignoring that the benefits that we got so far were huge,” Bourla said.
During the “Health and Prosperity through Prevention” panel, Adar C. Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India, suggested that governments could have done more during the COVID-19 pandemic to implement vaccine passports.
“Governments could have come together more in a global sense to standardize regulatory policies, vaccine certificates … just to give you a few examples of what I think we can do better,” Poonawalla said.
WEF speaker suggests governments should have done a better job with vaccine certificates during the COVID-19 pandemic, expresses hope of countries signing WHO’s pandemic accord pic.twitter.com/N1LvTn7ZSh
— Syd Fizzard 🍁 (@SydFizzard) January 22, 2025
Poonawalla suggested the World Health Organization’s (WHO) pandemic treaty as a means through which such cooperation could occur. The treaty, which the WHO failed to enact at last year’s World Health Assembly, remains under negotiation.
The Serum Institute is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer and produces more than half of the vaccines administered to babies globally. It previously received grants from the Gates Foundation to develop COVID-19 vaccines.
The “next pandemic” was also on the agenda at this year’s WEF annual meeting. Speaking at the WEF’s pre-annual meeting press conference on Jan. 14, Børge Brende, president and CEO of the WEF, said “global collaboration” is required to address “cross-border challenges” such as pandemics.
“The borders are no security for that. You have to collaborate. We see, for example now, the bird flu that is emerging,” Brende said.
Some key global health figures were less visible at this year’s WEF annual meeting compared to years past. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who last year warned WEF attendees about the risks of the “next pandemic,” limited his participation this year to a speech on brain health.
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WEF targets ‘misinformation’ as greatest global risk — again
For the second consecutive year, the WEF’s Global Risks Report highlighted misinformation and disinformation as the top global risks over the next two years. This year’s report cited a survey of over 900 “experts.”
According to the WEF, misinformation and disinformation are “a leading mechanism for foreign entities to affect voter intentions,” “can sow doubt among the general public worldwide about what is happening in conflict zones” and “can be used to tarnish the image of products or services from another country.”
The same report listed misinformation and disinformation as the fifth biggest global risk over a 10-year timeframe.
Reflecting these concerns, Klaus Schwab, founder of the WEF and chairman of its board of trustees, said on Tuesday during his welcoming remarks that misinformation and disinformation are among the critical challenges the world faces during its transition to the technology-driven “intelligent age.”
In his speech to WEF attendees, Trump pushed back against concerns about the risks of misinformation. He said:
“On day one, I signed an executive order to stop all government censorship. No longer will our government label the speech of our own citizens as misinformation or disinformation, which are the favorite words of censors and those who wish to stop the free exchange of ideas and, frankly, progress.
“We have saved free speech in America, and we’ve saved it strongly with another historic executive order.”
Some commentators noted that this year’s meeting was held under the shadow of the incoming Trump administration and the global changes that may follow.
According to CNBC, there was also “some ambivalence” from potential attendees “over attending an event that has been accused of being elitist and out-of-touch.”
Related articles in The Defender:
- Biden and Trump Administrations Commit Combined Billions to mRNA Vaccine Technologies
- ‘Trustees of the Future’? WEF Members Meet in Davos to Warn of Looming ‘Disease X’ Disaster
- WEF Leaders More Worried About ‘Misinformation’ Than War or Poverty
- Klaus Schwab to Vacate Top Post, as WEF Looks to Become Global Leader in Public-Private ‘Cooperation’
- Trump Orders U.S. to Withdraw From World Health Organization
