Is investment in personalized medicine worthwhile?

Monografia opublikowana w zeszycie Biotechnologia 2(85)'2009

Since the dawn of the 21st century, pharmacology has become a field increasingly closely related to the development of a new science - genomics. Due to increasingly smaller efficacy of using “conventional” therapies, the world of science is starting to seek drugs dedicated to patients with a specific genotype. The possibility of finding the genetic background of diseases largely incurable to this date, such as cancers, diabetes or depression, will allow for “targeted therapy”, improving thereby therapy efficacy by adjusting optimum treatment agents to the individual genetic profile of a specific patient. With propagation of this new type of medicine - personalized medicine, the approach to therapy and the attitude of the patient himself are changing, as the patient seeing efficacy of his therapy is more willing to closely cooperate with the managing physician. Considerations discussed therein allow for a conclusion that further pharmacogenetic research is necessary not only to improve therapy efficacy, but also to seek possibilities of reasonable cost savings in medicine.