Is personalized medicine the future of healthcare?
Personalized medicine is a popular application of healthcare analytics. Since 2014, healthcare organizations have started investing in personalized medicine, and in 2017, 16 different personalized medicines were approved by the FDA.
The current attention personalized medicine received is due in part to its advantages over traditional medicine as well as its profitable business model. Different to traditional medicine, which fails to catch differences between patients, personalized medicine aims to customize medical treatment by analyzing each patient’s body characteristics, medical history, disease conditions and more. As a result, personalized medicine can cure patients more effectively, especially for certain genetic diseases.
Besides its healthcare performance, personalized medicine is also a potentially profitable business for medical corporations. Based on current technology and biology advancements, clinics can easily implement systems and equipment that can analyze patients’ data and produce personalized medicine automatically. Furthermore, medicine, especially effective medicine, can be sold at a premium price with a high profit margin. After entering the market, personalized medicine would have considerable returns for companies’ investments.
However, pharmaceutical companies still face a major challenge. It is particularly difficult for them to convince healthcare providers that personalized medicine functions better than traditional medicine. Many doctors tend to be conservative, and are not likely to try move to new medicines before serious practice and validation.
Source: https://www.personalizedmedicinebulletin.com/2018/02/19/3631/
