Precise But (Not Yet) Personal

Posted on | February 25, 2015 | 1 Comment

“President Obama’s new initiative to fund genetic sequencing could be a powerful tool for good in improving U.S. health care—but only if the medical establishment welcomes it.”

That’s the view of Duke Chancellor Emeritus, Ralph Snyderman, MD in a recent article in The American Interest.

In the article, he explains, “On January 30, 2015, President Obama announced a bold funding initiative to support the sequencing of the genomes of a million volunteers and correlate the data with clinical information to allow a better understanding of the roles genes play in health and disease. This information will boost precision or personalized medicine and allow appropriate therapeutics to be targeted to those who need them — that is, getting the right drug to the right person. This is in contrast to our current “one-size-fits-all” approach to care, where more than half of major drugs are ineffective or cause unwanted side effects, and drug expenditures are currently about $320 billion a year and rising. Replacing that approach with one designed to meet the precise needs of the patient would not only be better medicine, but also more cost-effective.” Read on…

Comments

One Response to “Precise But (Not Yet) Personal”

Brian
March 9th, 2015 @ 11:51 am

More personalised medicine could lead to less prolonged health problems meaning that there are less expenses on unclogging the healthcare system.