“Personalized medicine is redefining the health industry and disrupting existing business models,” according to a recent report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) Health Research Institute.

Personalized medicine is the right treatment for the right person at the right time, and is defined in the report as “products and services that leverage the science of genomics and proteomics (directly or indirectly) and capitalize on the trends toward wellness and consumerism to enable tailored approaches to prevention and care.” Genomics is the study of an organism’s genes while proteomics is the study of the proteins that genes create or “express.” Genomic testing allows identifying an individual’s susceptibility to disease, predicting how a given patient will respond to a particular drug, and matching patients with the right therapeutics.

Personalized medicine is referred to as P4 medicine because of its four characteristics:

1. It is Personalized, which means it is based on an understanding of how genetic variation drives individual treatment.

2. It is Predictive, which means it is able to identify what conditions a person might contract in the future and how the person will respond to a given treatment, enabling the development of a tailored health plan.
3. It is Preventive, which means it facilitates a proactive approach to health and medicine, which shifts the focus from illness to wellness.
4. It is Participatory, which means it empowers patients to make informed choices and take responsibility for their own health.

The report estimates that the U.S. personalized medicine market is at about $232 billion and is projected to grow 11% annually by 2015. The core diagnostic and therapeutic segment of the market such as pharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostics companies, is estimated at $24 billion, and is expected to grow by 10% annually. The personalized medical care portion of the market which includes telemedicine, health information technology, and disease management services offered by traditional health and technology companies is estimated at $4-12 billion and could grow tenfold by 2015. As for the related nutrition and wellness market (including retail, complementary and alternative medicine offered by consumer products, food and beverage, leisure and retail companies) it is estimated at $196 billion and projected to grow to over $290 billion by 2015.

The development of “targeted” diagnostics and therapeutics that leverage knowledge of an individual’s genetic makeup to create a more personalized approach to healthcare is a revolutionary and worthwhile endeavor. Among its many potentials, it can help eliminate unnecessary treatments, reduce the incidence of adverse reactions to drugs, increase the efficacy of treatments and ultimately, improve health outcomes.