The Revolution of Personalized Medicine - Are we going to cure all diseases and at what price ?

Personalised medicine continues to dominate the 21^st century healthcare revolution, according to Aaron Ciechanover, the winner of the Novel Prize in Chemistry (2004), said in his speech regarding pharmaceutical R&D.

Dr Ciechanover and his peers’ discovery relating to proteasome has impacted drug development. He mentioned many important drugs such as penicillin and aspirin were discovered ‘by serendipity’. Treating diseases now steps into a whole new era that we have realised that the treatment can be tailored based on the patient’s molecular/mutational profile. With that in mind, understanding the correlation between drugs and how they react on targets will therefore push forward new drugs development. ‘Personalised medicine’ is the future of healthcare, he added.

Dr Ciechanover also indicated what comes with development of personalised medicine would be complex bioethical problems, ranging from pricing, accessibility to personal privacy.