The original vision of “personalized medicine” focused on tailoring medications to the biology of the individual patient — treating them with the right drug at the right time. That view has since evolved beyond therapy selection to increasingly encompass aspects of drug discovery, planning and delivery of care, and patient engagement. This new approach, now termed “precision medicine,” goes beyond treatment to include disease prevention and to consider genetic and other -omic, environmental, and increasingly, lifestyle differences between individuals. The goal of precision medicine is not just to offer better treatment for a patient’s health condition, but to detect problems at a much earlier and more easily treatable stage or to prevent them altogether.
Precision medicine approaches have resulted in a number of important advances in the area of cancer diagnosis and treatment. Now physicians, drug and diagnostic developers, data and digital health companies, payers, and policy makers are actively seeking to apply precision medicine approaches to other disease areas such as neurology and mental health, immunology, and metabolic diseases. How can they apply the lessons learned from the successes of precision medicine in oncology to these new, sometimes more complex areas? What are the tools available to succeed in this effort? And what is needed from both industry and outside groups, including payers and policy makers, to make precision medicine approaches a broad success?
If you are planning to attend BIO 2019 in Philadelphia next week, we hope you will join us for what should be a lively discussion on “Precision Medicine Beyond Oncology,” to be held on Wednesday June 5 from 11-12, Room 116, Level 100. Participants will include representatives from Bionest, Roche, and Stemina Biomarker Discovery in a discussion to be moderated by BioCentury Senior Editor, Erin McCallister.
And if you’d like to meet with members of the Bionest team during BIO 2019, let us know!