K.K. Jain, Textbook of Personalized Medicine, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-2553-7_23, 681
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Chapter 23
Economics of Personalized Medicine
Introduction
Success of personalized medicine cannot be measured in dollars alone. The
improvement in healthcare and quality of life with reduction of disease burden will
have an impact on all aspects of human life with economic benefi ts. A discussion of
fi nancial aspects, of personalized medicine, however, is important for two reasons:
(1) pharmaceutical companies would like to know if it would be profi table; and (2)
healthcare providers would like to know if it is affordable. Development of person-
alized medicine would also affect the pharmaceutical markets, which are described
in detail in a special report on this topic (Jain 2015a ).
Perceived Financial Concerns
The pharmaceutical industry expects new technologies to facilitate the development
and introduction of “blockbuster drugs”, which are currently defi ned as those gen-
erating >$1 billion per year. It is common belief in the pharmaceutical industry that
blockbuster drugs must target large patient populations and concern has been
expressed that personalized medicine may shrink the market for a particular drug by
limiting the number of those who can take it. Therefore, the pharmaceutical compa-
nies are interested in using genetics to develop drugs for the population in general
and not for a particular genotype. But the important role of genetic variability in
disease and therapy revealed by pharmacogenomics suggests that smaller, geneti-
cally defi ned patient populations can be treated more effectively. This would require
a complete rethinking and retooling of the genetics-based drug discovery and devel-
opment on part of the pharmaceutical industry.