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Precision medicine requires a different type of clinical trial that focuses on individual, not average, responses to therapy, says Nicholas J. Schork.
Every day, millions of people are taking medications that will not help them. The top ten highest-grossing drugs in the United States help between 1 in 25 and 1 in 4 of the people who take them (see 'Imprecision medicine' ). For some drugs, such as statins — routinely used to lower cholesterol — as few as 1 in 50 may benefit. There are even drugs that are harmful to certain ethnic groups because of the bias towards white Western participants in classical clinical trials.
Recognition that physicians need to take individual variability into account is driving huge interest in 'precision' medicine. In January, US President Barack Obama announced a US$215-million national Precision Medicine Initiative. This includes, among other things, the establishment of a national database of the genetic and other data of one million people in the United States.
http://www.nature.com/news/personalized-medicine-time-for-one-person-trials-1.17411
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday May 04 2015, @06:23AM
The point of precision medicine is that an individual can get highly personalized treatment based on their genome, and other factors.
"Drug trials" which you see as necessary to medical science will eventually die out. They'll be replaced by computer simulations.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @07:24AM
Computer simulations? Of reality? How quaint!
“Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.”
Vader, Darth; formerly Anakin Skywalker, chief consort of Queen Amidala, and ex-Pod Racer. Oh, and Luke's Father.