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Personalized medicine into the next generation

The concept of personalized medicine has received much attention in recent years. On the basis of increased knowledge of interindividual differences in DNA sequences, as well as the ability to link variation in the human genome to efficacy and adverse reactions caused by drug treatment, the pharmaceutical industry, clinicians and regulators are now focusing more on the individual response. This has led to a transition from population-based dosing and prescriptions to patient individualization both in drug development and in clinical practice. Furthermore, it has now become clear within the pharmaceutical industry that successful production of ‘blockbuster drugs’ with effects in the entire population will be increasingly less likely in the future; instead, more specific medications targeted towards subpopulations of patients will be required. Pharmacogenomics, the study of the variation in the human genome that can affect the response to drug therapy, was the focus of a symposium on Personalized medicine sponsored by the Journal of Internal Medicine (JIM) in Stockholm on 8 May 2014. In this issue of JIM, several of the speakers at this symposium review their different fields of expertise.