VIEWPOINT: It’s already here

Arun Nadarasa takes you on a journey into the metaverse where drones will deliver medicines prescribed by a metapharmacist from a metapharmacy…

WAGMI or ‘we are all gonna make it’ is an established abbreviation in the crypto world, and pharmacists can learn from it. To all the dreamers, the visionaries, the go-getters, the futurists – we need you all.

In the past few months, since the rebranding of Facebook into Meta, the word ‘Metaverse’ has become exponentially popular and there is a huge opportunity for pharmacists to get involved.

In his popular podcast, Aragorn Meulendijks, the chief marketing officer at Your Open Metaverse – YOM, gave a crystal-clear vision on the unique and valuable possibility of a metaverse pharmacy or metapharmacy.

Imagine it is 2030, and there are over a billion users of Virtual Reality headsets. You have recently been hired as the new metaverse pharmacist (metapharmacist) at the global metaverse pharmacy (metapharmacy) “YOMRx”.

Your patient comes to your metapharmacy with their digital twin (different to digital avatar)

where you are able to provide them with medical advice (metaconsultation).

For example, you recommend the patient to take guaifenesin (as NFT = non-fungible token) and pick it up from the virtual shelf to then hand it to the patient. The patient makes the payment using “pharmacycoin” (DRX) which gets validated in the blockchain (Solana or Polygon) and added to their decentralized health record (DHR – which they own).

Following this, the medication gets delivered to the patient’s home via a drone. This also applies to an avatar patient visiting the prescribing metapharmacist in their metaverse clinic (metaclinic) and is prescribed a POM via a Decentralized Prescription Service (DPS) token.

Since this is an emerging market, every metapharmacist needs to have done mandatory

training on MIQ (metaverse intelligence quotient developed by Shea Richburg). In your

toolkit, you will be able to prescribe metaverse therapeutics (MTx) (similarly to digital therapeutics - DTx) for a specified period including move-to-earn (M2E) game (Genopets) and fulfil-to-earn (F2E) game (fractal fantasy) from the fractal health-based games portfolio.

The same principle applies with metaverse social prescribing (MSP), where the new cohorts of pharmacy students will be able to prescribe once they qualify as pharmacists. They will be able to create a metaverse personalized care plan (MPCP – metaplan) using virtual community assets like dance classes and cooking classes as well as refer patients appropriately for financial advice to the relevant organization in the metaverse.

You may think this is science fiction, however, the metaverse market is predicted to reach the $1 trillion market by 2030. The new business model will shift from direct-to-patient (DTP) to direct-to-avatar (D2A) and unless you upskill your knowledge on Web3, you will be left behind.

In order to understand the Metaverse opportunities, you first need to understand “The Seven Layers of the Metaverse” (by Jon Radoff):

• Infrastructure – 5G, WiFi 6, 6G, Cloud, 7nm to 1.4nm, MEMS, GPUs, Materials
• Human Interface – Mobile, Smartglasses, Wearables, Haptic, Gestures, Voice, Neural
• Decentralization – Edge Computing, AI Agents, Microservices, Blockchain
• Spatial Computing – 3D Engines, VR/AR/XR, Multitasking UI, Geospatial Mapping
• Creator Economy – Design Tools, Assets Markets, Workflow, Commerce
• Discovery – Ad Networks, Social, Curation, Ratings, Stores, Agents
• Experience – Games, Social, E-Sports, Theatre, Shopping

Secondly, you also need to understand that User Experience (UX) will shift to Spatial Experience (SX) (by Rahimi et al.):

• Context
  • Breadth – Service, Channel, Security/Safety, Accessibility
  • Significance – Identity, Archetype, Function, Meaning
• People
  • Interaction – Passive, Active, Interactive
  • Intensity – Reflex, Habit, Engagement, Persuasion, Coercion
• Activity
  • Duration – Initiation, Immersion, Conclusion, Continuation
  • Trigger – Sense, Concept, Emotion, Promotion

Lastly, it is critical to understand the differences between Layer 1 and Layer 2 Metaverse. Daniël van der Waals’ post (founder of YOM & Beemup) clearly defines them as follows:

“Any project that confines itself to realizing the vision of the Metaverse, we consider a Layer 1 (L1) metaverse. In contrast, Layer 2 (L2) metaverses are highly defined in terms of the gameplay mechanics and features but usually lack in terms of vision regarding the ecosystem and technical architecture. In fact, we can argue that a L1 metaverse would fundamentally not have any gameplay features at all. Thereby, we exclude all gaming projects that successfully implemented blockchain within their project as candidate for the L1 metaverse label.

Another key difference between L1 and L2 metaverses is the extent of their services and programmability. A L1 metaverse provides programmability on game engine-level while a L2 usually offers a limited set of customization options within a runtime application. The reason we refer to these projects as Layer 2 metaverse is that theoretically they can be hosted on any Layer 1 metaverse...

Within the metaspaces, there are a variety of possibilities, you can:

1. Design custom metaspaces
2. Include sponsors to make your metaspaces profitable
3. Publish your metaspaces as persistent, interactive worlds onto the metaverse
4. Host and monetise live virtual events with 3D scanned humans on your (leased) metaspaces
5. Collect insights
6. A/B test experiences”

To be part of this new ecosystem, it is recommended to take part in the Web3 hackathon which includes best practices:

• Solana Developers (Rust) or Polygon Developers (Solidity)
• Unreal Engine or Unity Developers
• Marketing Campaign (Discord)
• Whitepaper (Google Document)
• Character Designers (Maya)
• Music Producer (FL Studio)
• Storyline (Final Draft)
• Angle Shots (Storyboarder)
• Project Management (Monday.com)
• Domain (iPage)
• Vetting each team member (Zoom)

This will equip you with the right skillset to be part of the Metaverse Pharmacy ecosystem. The most valuable skill in a Metaverse Society (metasociety) will surely be the Unreal Engine development experience.

On the other side of the spectrum with Space Tourism, there will be the emergence of Space Pharmacists. With SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, having pharmacists in spaceships will become a reality and you will need to upskill your knowledge on Space Medicines as well as Space Social Prescribing (SSP). NASA astronauts use their own personalised care plan, and this is the one from Dr Serena Auñón-Chancellor (she was in space for 197 days):

• Connection to Earth
• Mindfulness/Meditation
• Exercise
• Sense of Purpose
• Expedition Culture
• Contact with Family
• Work/Rest Cycle
• Sleep
• Food/Nutrition

In the same context, Space Link Workers (SLW) will be a new role as space tourism travel increases to several weeks or months. This creates yet another opportunity for pharmacists to be upskilled to become SLW.

If the above projects have inspired you, I invite you all to attend the “Pharmacy Social Prescribing Conference” (PSPC), which will take place on the 19^th April from 7pm till 10pm via Zoom and it is free.

It will bring stakeholders from the metaverse industry as well as the social prescribing sector together including Professor Sir Michael Marmot (Institute of Health Equity) and Isabelle Wachsmuth (WHO). We are also pleased to have Professor Thais Russomano who has over 30 years experience in space medicines. The link to register is available here.

WAGMI !