PRECISION MEDICINE – HEALTHCARE’S PROMISING DISRUPTER? By Nina Flanagan
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recision medicine has the potential to revolutionize healthcare by providing better treatment options and earlier diagnoses. The inclusion of genetic, lifestyle, and environmental information serves as a roadmap to personalized care. Genetic information and analysis create massive amounts of data that ideally leads to new drug targets and better understanding of disease processes. Along the way, new initiatives and innovations are being developed to address health disparities and to advance research efforts. The frequency of “Precision Medicine” as a title phrase over time in the medical literature gives a striking visual of the explosion of interest in this innovative approach.
A shift from a “one-size-fits-all” treatment approach to precision medicine has huge implications for healthcare. A 2021 Research & Markets report estimated the global precision medicine market will reach $100 USD billion by 2026, driven by a surge in chronic diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and obesity. Cancer alone is expected to increase 47% worldwide by 2040, affecting 28.4 million people. Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death worldwide, costing almost 18 million lives every year. These public health challenges are incentives to adapt precision medicine and there are now 14 countries with national genomic initiatives.
Addressing Health Disparities Using Precision Medicine Approaches
There are concerns that the potential of precision medicine remains overshadowed by health disparities. Several initiatives are currently addressing this. The All of Us Research Program, established in 2015 by former President Obama in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is working to address health disparities by reaching out to all communities to enlist one million volunteers for its DNA registry. INNOVATION EXPRESS MAGAZINE
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