The Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC) today released a newly updated overview of the state of personalized medicine with reference to the latest advancements in research and clinical care as well as the policy and clinical implementation challenges associated with the field. The report shows that the number of personalized medicines on the market in the United States has grown from 132 in 2016 to 286 in 2020, the largest four-year increase since the Coalition began tracking this figure in 2008. The expanding number of personalized medicines available underscores growing opportunities to improve patient care and eliminate wasteful spending by targeting molecularly guided treatments to those patients whose biological characteristics make them most likely to benefit. But as the report also notes, the advancement of personalized medicine has raised new challenges related to regulatory oversight, coverage and reimbursement, and clinical adoption of the innovative diagnostics and treatments underpinning the field.
Now in its sixth edition, The Personalized Medicine Report: Opportunity, Challenges, and the Future reviews the scientific and technological trends that are helping physicians align prevention and treatment plans more closely with each patient’s biological characteristics, circumstances and values. With reference to new tools including liquid biopsies, gene therapies and advanced data analytics, the report underlines personalized medicine’s capacity to:
- Shift the emphasis in medicine from reaction to prevention;
- Direct targeted therapy and reduce trial-and-error prescribing;
- Reduce the frequency and magnitude of adverse drug reactions;
- Replace or circumvent aberrant molecular pathways associated with disease;
- Reveal additional targeted uses for medicines and drug candidates;
- Increase patient adherence to treatment;
- Reduce high-risk invasive testing procedures;
- Help to shift physician-patient engagement toward patient-centered care; and
- Help to control the overall cost of health care.
To ensure that all patients can reap the full measure of personalized medicine’s benefits, the report contends, health systems around the world will need to update outdated regulatory and reimbursement processes and address obstacles related to the clinical adoption of new medical practices and processes.
“The sixth edition of The Personalized Medicine Report underlines the importance of ensuring that our health systems are aligned with the latest science and technology so that we can deliver unprecedented benefits to both patients and health systems by targeting the right treatments to the right patients at the right time,” said PMC President Edward Abrahams.
PMC will make printed copies of the report available to institutions interested in disseminating the publication to their own networks. For details, please contact PMC Vice President for Public Affairs Christopher J. Wells at cwells@personalizedmedicinecoalition.org.
