Personalised medicine

Personalised medicine is a move away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the treatment and care of patients with a particular condition, to one which uses new approaches to better manage patients’ health and targets therapies to achieve the best outcomes in the management of a patient’s disease or predisposition to disease.

We are all unique. Our health is determined by our inherent differences combined with our lifestyles and environment. By combining and analysing information about our genome, with other clinical and diagnostic information, patterns can be identified that can help to determine our individual risk of developing disease; detect illness earlier; and, determine the most effective interventions to help improve our health, be they medicines, lifestyle choices, or even simple changes in diet.

The concept of personalised medicine is not new. Clinicians have been working to personalise care, tailored to people’s individual health needs, throughout the history of medicine, but never before has it been possible to predict how each of our bodies will respond to specific interventions, or identify which of us is at risk of developing an illness. New possibilities are now emerging as we bring together novel approaches, such as whole genome sequencing, data and informatics, and wearable technology. It is the interconnections between these innovations that makes it possible to move to an era of truly personalised care.

Technological and scientific advances are already here and will continue to develop and improve medical practice; change is inevitable.