The future of drug discovery and development: Shifting emphasis towards personalized medicine

The drug discovery sector is being revolutionized by the current rate of advances in the public and private human genome projects and by the development of new technologies for biomarker testing. In effect, as the genetic roots of disease, disease progression and treatment effectiveness are uncovered, the demand for sophisticated prognostic, diagnostic and monitoring tests will be increasing. Already this has led to the development of innovative diagnostics products meeting the criteria of improved efficacy and safety as well as better cost-benefits. In order to achieve the ultimate goal of a more predictive and personalized medicine requires the drug discovery industry to implement more synergies between the two worlds of clinical research and diagnostics. The therapeutics that are enabled by that strategy are often called "theranostics" -- highly specific tests that allow for the diagnosis of the disease, but to administer the most appropriate treatment regimen, and to monitor a patient's response to therapy. Biomarkers will constitute a critical component of the health care delivery system in order to detect, diagnose and monitor diseases and other medical conditions as well as to evaluate treatment options and effectiveness. While diagnostic breakthroughs typically precede therapeutic advances, the presence of new therapies can stimulate the demand for testing. The main question that remains to be answered is how will the biomarker paradigm alters these companies' innovation and commercialization strategies. Whereas developing drug targets may offer greater long-term value, initial commercial opportunities often arise in diagnostics.

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