K.K. Jain, Textbook of Personalized Medicine, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-2553-7_20, 589
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Chapter 20
Development of Personalized Medicine
Introduction
In conventional medical practice, the physicians rely on their personal experience in
treating patients. In spite of advances in basic medical sciences and introduction of
new technologies, the physicians continue to rely on their judgment and sometimes
intuition because practice of medicine is an art as well as a science.
Physicians of the last generation had a limited access to information. With
advances in molecular biology and its impact on medicine, tremendous amount of
new basic information has been generated particularly in genomics and gene expres-
sion. Digitalization of information has made it accessible. The problem now is a
fl ood of information, which requires strategies to sort out the relevant from the
irrelevant. Information on large number of studies with stratifi cation of large num-
ber of patients will have to be analyzed to make decisions about treatment of an
individual. The massive amount of publications need to be sorted out and analyzed
for their relevance to individualized treatment.
Players in the Development of Personalized Medicine
Development of personalized medicine is a multidisciplinary undertaking and will
need teamwork by many players. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies
have taken a leading role in this venture in keeping with their future as healthcare
enterprises rather than mere developers of technologies and manufacturers of medi-
cines. The practicing physicians will play a vital role in implementing personalized
medicine. Various players in the development of personalized medicine are listed in
Table 20.1. The Personalized Medicine Coalition contains many of these players.