The future of medicine will be data-driven and focused on creating personalized medicine for each patient based on their individual molecular profile, according to a paper by The Personalized Medicine Initiative and PwC Canada.
Personalized medicine would enable more precise diagnosis of diseases and guide therapeutic interventions, particularly in the treatment of cancer, infectious disease, heart disease, lung disease, and neurological disorders.
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The paper, Roadmap for Bringing Personalized Medicine to British Columbians, reveals how this new approach to medicine could benefit patients while potentially alleviating strain on British Columbia’s healthcare system with more targeted approaches to treatment.
“Personalized medicine is on the brink of transforming medicine by making it tailored to, and effective for, each individual,” says paper co-author Dr. Pieter Cullis, director of the Life Sciences Institute, University of British Columbia. “Everyone has their own unique genomic blueprint and molecular makeup and this approach will help us to better match the therapy we prescribe to the disorder the individual has, which ultimately will improve outcomes and the efficiency of our healthcare system.”
With a population that is aging faster than most of Canada, B.C. seniors will compromise 25% of the province’s population by 2040 and will consume more than 50% of healthcare costs by 2022. Personalized medicine is potentially one way of both improving patient care with more effective treatment leading to controlling costs, which will become increasingly important as patient volume continues to increase.
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