Ensuring personalized medicines reach patients

Personalized medicine is changing the health care landscape for patients by bringing new and innovative treatments to the market. Among the many benefits of personalized medicine, include providing physicians more effective and tailored treatment options, giving patients greater control and avoiding treatments that are unnecessary with the use of diagnostics.

A survey conducted by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development and sponsored by the Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC) demonstrates continued momentum and growth in the pipeline. The survey found:

• 42 percent of new medicines in the pipeline have the potential to be personalized medicines.
• 73 percent of cancer medicines in the pipeline have this potential as well.
• Biopharmaceutical companies have nearly doubled their R&D investment in personalized medicines over the past five years, and expect to increase their investment by an additional one-third in the next five years.
• Biopharmaceutical researchers forecast a 69 percent increase in the number of personalized medicines in development over the next five years.  This is all due to scientific advances which are fueling this sectors growth.

America’s biopharmaceutical companies are playing a crucial role in bringing personalized medicines to patients through extensive R&D and the associated costs and risks that accompany the drug development process.

As the science is becoming more cutting edge and personalized medicines are being developed, it’s important to ensure the promise of these products reaches patients. Conversations about how we pay for value and emerging payment and delivery reforms hold promise in advancing the efficient delivery of high-quality, personalized care. At the same time, value-based payments hold significant implications for the physician-patient relationship and patient access to care, and we need to make sure patient access to high quality care and the most innovative, new treatments aren’t hindered.  

With new payment and delivery systems being discussed at the same time as tremendous advances in personalized medicine, it’s critical that we remain focused on putting patients first. Access to these new, potentially life-changing treatments, along with shared decision making and use of real world evidence, will accelerate personalized medicine development and align these systems to advance health care for the future.

PhRMA recently joined with The Hill to convene two panel discussions highlighting this new health care frontier. To continue the discussion, the latest Conversations question was posed to experts on personalized care: How we can ensure the promise of personalized medicine reaches patients?

Take a look at the responses on the Conversations page and join the discussion online using #HealthPOV.