The new world of digital drugs

In his recent book The Nature of Technology, the economist and complexity scholar Brian Arthur identifies three core ideas underlying technologies of all types: 1) an intention to fulfil some human purpose; 2) an assemblage of practices and components; and 3) future innovative potential achieved by drawing on available repertoires of components and engineering practices. The drugs used in providing healthcare are an important contemporary technology, and these three ideas are central to understanding the ways in which they become digital.