Personalized medicine is on the rise. Genomic sequencing is allowing rapid, accurate analysis of our DNA, and uncovering the detailed fingerprints of diseases like cancer, which is now understood in terms of DNA mutation profiles rather than its location in the body. This is allowing the development of more targeted – and thus more effective – treatments, closely matched to patients’ conditions. Targeted therapies mean fewer people suffer unnecessary side effects that may accompany ineffective therapy. They help payers avoid the costs of products that don’t work and for pharmaceutical firms, they transform R&D economics: trials that select participants according to their genetic profile, to fit as closely as possible the therapy under study, generate results faster, with fewer patients, than those that don’t.
The number of trials that include a companion diagnostic to help select eligible patients is growing steadily, from one trial...