As new genetic therapies become available for certain diseases, such as Casgevy and Lyfgenia for Sickle Cell Anemia, it is evident that the future of medicine lies within each person's genome. Because of advancements in genetic medicine, pharmaceutical products can go beyond targeting symptoms or mutated genes. Treatments and treatment plans could become personalized to the fullest extent possible. However, clinical and ethical concerns regarding personalized medicine and precision medicine are important; these medicines are incredibly new and can be incredibly powerful.
“Personalized medicine” is a branch of medicine that tailors its treatment to an individual’s unique genetic makeup using their unique genome as a guide (National Human Genome Research Institute 2024). Each person’s set of (very many) genes is slightly different, thus drugs and other therapies can be infinitely personal to an individual. For example, different drugs or doses of a drug may work better for one person versus another based on their genetics and other “environmental” factors such as their eating habits. This is often referred to as “precision medicine” because it is not tailored completely to the individual, however, it is more likely to work best in a subset of the general population based on shared genetic and environmental factors (MedLine Plus 2024). Personalized medicine and precision medicine are often used interchangeably since they are fundamentally similar but differ in their scope.
Precision medicine offers a more utilitarian approach than personalized medicine because only 0.1% of genetic information differs between humans, meaning 99.9% of our genetic makeup is identical (Balch 2024). There is expected variation from person to person at Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms or “SNPs”, which are relatively common, single base pair differences between people at a specific location in the genome. Although 0.1% of the genome is very small, this portion is highly variable (Balch 2024), making it a genetic “Wild West”.
Furthermore, personalized medicine and precision medicine are becoming a popular clinical research topic. Penn State Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, and the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles created personalized medicine research centers. From this, it is evident that the potential for personalized medicine is nothing short of limitless. However, it is necessary to consider who can have access to the advancements created by personalized medicine and how personal health data is acquired and handled.
Historically, as outlined by the American Association of Medical Colleges, People of Color, people without health insurance or with insufficient health insurance, and people living in rural areas have significant barriers to accessing medical care. Furthermore, most studies previously done about genetic variability have only evaluated subjects of European descent (Balch 2024). Moreover, wearable devices can give healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical companies real-time, around-the-clock, personal data (Vicente et al. 2020). Who will have access to personalized medicine if it becomes commonplace in clinical practice? Is it ethical to constantly track an individual’s health data? These questions and others are necessary to ask as personalized medicine gains traction and clinical feasibility.
Works Cited
Balch, Bridget . “Personalized Medicine Is Coming, but Who Will Have Access to It?” AAMCNEWS, American Association of Medical Colleges, 7 Mar. 2024,
Accessed 24 June 2024.
FDA News Release. “FDA Approves First Gene Therapies to Treat Patients with Sickle Cell Disease.” Fda.gov, 8 Dec. 2023, www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-gene-therapies-treat-patients-sickle-cell-disease. Accessed 24 June 2024.
MedLine Plus Contributors. “What Is the Difference between Precision Medicine and Personalized Medicine? What about Pharmacogenomics?: MedlinePlus Genetics.” Medlineplus.gov, MedLine Plus, 2024, medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/precisionmedicine/precisionvspersonalized/. Accessed 24 June 2024.
National Human Genome Research Institute Contributors. “Personalized Medicine.” Genome.gov, National Institute of Health, 2022, www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Personalized-Medicine. Accessed 24 June 2024.
Vicente, Astrid M., et al. “How Personalised Medicine Will Transform Healthcare by 2030: The ICPerMed Vision.” Journal of Translational Medicine, vol. 18, no. 1, 28 Apr. 2020, translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12967-020-02316-w, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-020-02316-w. Accessed 24 June 2024. Assessed and Endorsed by the MedReport Medical Review Board