Journal of Bioequivalence & Bioavailability

Abstract

Personalized Medicine: A Review with Regard to Biomarkers

Behzad Foroutan

Personalized medicine (PM) is an emerging practice of medicine that uses an individual’s genetic profile to guide decisions made in regard to the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases. Personalized medicine is being advanced through data from the Human Genome Project. It is beginning to achieve its goal of “the right therapy to the right patient at the right time”. Today PM is moving us closer to more precise, predictable and powerful medication customized for an individual patient. By the way the genomic data is the driving force behind PM. Upward understanding of genetics is allowing us to provide better diagnoses, safer medication prescribing, and more effective therapy of the diseases and conditions that have affected us throughout history. Therapies targeting biomarkers have been associated with several successes in the last decades, together with their limits and related unsolved questions. Most of tumors will eventually develop resistance potentially due to intra-tumor heterogeneity and selection of additional molecular events. Furthermore, studies in the field of molecular characterization of tumors have shown that most tumors comprise large number of rare genomic events. Administering one single medication will incur in non-durable results. So the future is to smartly develop personalized therapies which could change the regular history of several diseases mainly tumors. Notably PM will not change traditional therapy however, in regards to biomarkers; it might create a safe and effective therapy for every individual patient. Knowledge of a patient’s genetic profile can help physicians select the proper medication or therapy and administer it using the proper dose or regimen. Opportunities and challenges for PM would also be discussed in this review.

Personalized medicine will create significance value for the healthcare system but there is a quite a bite of debate over where the value will accrue.