What will healthcare look like in 2050? Will life expectancy be significantly longer? Will there be a slow, predictable shifting of the burden of disease, or will this accelerate in radical and surprising ways? Will the globalised world mean we experience similar disease patterns and, importantly, will the sector be able to apply nimble and agile technologies to address the needs? A new report by Translink Corporate Finance in partnership with The Institute for Futures Research at Stellenbosch Business School (IFR) explores the possible futures for healthcare by 2050 and the impacts on M&A.

Uncertainty about the future has dominated headlines in the last two years. On a global level, the COVID-19-related restrictions and, more recently, the Russia/Ukraine war have resulted in ripple effects and, in some cases, tsunamis that will be felt far into the future. The longer-term extent of these knock-on effects is unknown. Futurists therefore dedicate their work to scenario planning, to imagine plausible futures based on the so-called ‘known unknowns’. This is exactly what Translink and the Institute for Futures Research (IFR) has explored in the first of five sector reports entitled Tomorrow : 2050 Alternative Futures. The first iteration focuses on the futures of industrials.