Personalized Medicine and Effective Health Care - Case Study Example

Running Head: PERSONALIZED MEDICINE Personalized Medicine (Presented by) (Presented to) (Lecturer) (Topic) This paper presents a research conducted on personalized medicine. The paper addresses appeal, testing, implementation, ethics, reactions, development, benefits and acceptance of personalized medicine. Further, the paper recommends that pharmaceutical companies should reduce the cost of healthcare through development of cost-effective drugs. Finally, the paper makes a conclusion that personalized medicine is the way forward towards attainment of an effective health care in future. Table of Contents Abstract 2 Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Appeal 4 Implementation 5 Ethics 5 Testing 6 Reactions 6 Development 7 Benefits 8 Acceptance 8 Recommendation 9 Conclusion 9 References 10 Introduction According to Jain (2009), current drugs are developed and approved with reference to their performance. However, medicine has adopted a new move of developing personalized drugs, which have the capability and potential to address the needs of various patients in society with reference to their medical conditions and diseases. As such, personalized medicine aims at satisfying individuals’ treatment needs, as well as aiding in the design process of an individual treatment, which is based on individual characteristics and genotype. Personalized medicine may be referred to as translational medicine, customized drug therapy, integrated healthcare, tailored therapy, genotype-based therapy, information-based therapy, individual based therapy, systems medicine, omics-based medicine, rational drug selection, or predictive medicine (Jail, 2009). Personalized medicine has emerged as a new mechanism of integrating biotechnologies into medicine, which enables effective comprehension of diseases pathomechanism and patients management. Bioinformatics has also played a significant role towards determination of the complexity, which exists between the interaction of the environment, patient, and drugs. As such, bioinformatics will contribute significantly to the provision of solutions, which are aimed at improving healthcare of individuals through adoption of personalized medicine. Appeal Personalized medicine presents an effective means of integration of various new developments within biotechnology. These developments have aided in attainment of effective diagnostics and drugs, which have played a significant role towards improvement of healthcare. Further, personalized medicine has contributed towards human genome sequencing. In addition, personalized medicine creates an effective relationship between the patient and doctor. This relationship plays a significant role towards the recovery process of an individual. Personalized medicine also contributes to a change in the health habits of individuals and living styles. This has the impact of reduction of healthcare costs in society. Implementation Personalized medicine focuses on treatment of complex diseases, which include diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. These diseases are influenced by the human genome interaction and environmental factors. However, personalized medicine is not only focused on sick people, but also on disease prevention and wellness of individuals. This is because an individual’s genome plays a critical role in influencing the likelihood of developing various medical conditions. The focus of personalized medicine on these diseases is based on the desire to address individual needs on healthcare at a personal level. This also aids in giving hope and encouragement towards the individual to focus on attainment of effective health habits. The implementation process of personalized medicine relies on molecular diagnostic technologies, which include nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping. Diagnosis aids in identification of an effective treatment, as well as monitoring of results. Since technologies, which aid in implementation of personalized medicine collect an immense amount of data, bioinformatics plays a significant role in analyzing this data. Further, pharmacogenetics aids in personalized medicine implementation through identification of genetic factors, which have an influence on metabolism and action of drugs. In addition, pharmacogenetics facilitates in prediction of adverse effects on drugs reactions. Polymorphisms of genes influence the process of drug recovery in an individual. Therefore, analysis of genes polymorphisms effects is vital in the implementation process of personalized medicine. Ethics The process of development of personalized medicine is characterized of ethical issues in the process of genetic testing. This includes race of an individual and various social issues; such as, religion and culture. Moreover, regulatory issues, which are reliant, on FDA guidelines within pharmacogenomics are critical in the implementation process of personalized medicine. Finally, the safety and efficiency of personalized medicine in attaining its desired objectives presents another ethical consideration among patients and health practitioners. This is because safety and efficiency of personalized medicine influences financial savings of individuals. Testing Personalized medicine is vital in the improvement of healthcare. As such, testing of individuals is crucial in order to determine the success rate of personalized medicine. The testing should be based on targeted therapies and be integrated with precise diagnostic tests. Further, application of personalized medicine is reliant on genetic testing. Genetic testing involves taking of cells from skin, hair, blood, or saliva of an individual’s body and determining the genetic makeup of the collected cells. This is done since genetic testing facilitates in the answering of questions, which are based on medical conditions of an individual. Moreover, genetic testing provides substantial information, which relates to disease development and medical conditions of an individual. Such information provides health practitioners with an opportunity to offer the most effective and safe personalized medicine to patients. Reactions Reactions of individuals towards personalized medicine are influenced by race and ethnicity factors. Race and ethnicity are factors, which aid in categorizing people based on physical and shared ancestry traits. Moreover, ethnicity also includes religious, behavioral, linguistic, and cultural characteristics. Race and ethnicity have strong ties to individuals’ environment and genetics. As such, individual’s ethnicity and race influence significantly their reactions towards personalized medicine. This has necessitated the development of pharmacogenetics, which is a field that focuses on evaluating individuals’ response on drugs (Hunt, 2008). With pharmacogenetics, administering of personalized medicine is attainable effectively. This is because the response of individuals is analyzed and the relationship between patients and doctors is enhanced effectively. This contributes significantly towards treatment of individuals based on their lifestyle and family history. Nevertheless, individuals’ reactions towards personalized medicine are influenced by DNA mutations. This includes all the metabolic pathways, which occur in the body of an individual. These include gene copy variations, genes regulatory elements mutations, gene deletions, insertions, and duplications, and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). As such, pharmacogenetics focuses on identification of alleles (gene variants), which have the impact of influencing drug metabolism in the body of an individual. This illustrates that pharmacogenetics plays a vital role in evaluating individual response towards personalized medicine. Therefore, administering of personalized medicine should analyze all potential reactions of an individual towards drugs. Development Personalized medicine has been fostered by medical genetics advances, human genome sequencing, proteomics, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping, and medical diagnostic technologies. In addition, molecular biology developments have contributed significantly towards the development process of personalized medicine in society. Personalized medicine has also developed due to the emergence of the desire to address individual health care needs in society. Moreover, advancements in genetic testing have aided in the development of personalized medicine. Benefits Personalized medicine concept will offer pharmaceutical companies an opportunity to develop effective medicines, which will have fewer side effects on the body of individuals. Physicians will be able to use patients’ genetic profiles, which will aid them in using existing medicine safely and effectively. On the other hand, patients will have a chance of comprehending their genetic profile and know how to manage their health effectively. Moreover, personalized medicine will create an opportunity of matching correct drugs with patients’ treatment requirements at the right time. Further, personalized medicine provides an opportunity of making informed medical decisions, which contribute significantly towards a reduction in the cost of healthcare. This includes effective earlier disease intervention and focusing on disease prediction and prevention instead of developing reaction mechanisms towards the disease. Finally, personalized medicine will facilitate on attainment of better outcomes of disease treatment and reduction of negative side effects (Usnews.com, 2011). Acceptance In spite of intensive developments in personalized medicine, incorporation of personalized medicine in current clinical practice has taken a long duration (Newman & Freitag, 2011). Moreover, the scientific basis of personalized medicine has not impacted healthcare of patients. Lack of genomic-based tests reimbursements has contributed significantly to slow adoption of personalized medicine. Other contributing factors towards slow adoption of personalized medicine have been the dearth of therapies in development pipelines of companies, and a limitation on examples, which have a clinical benefit from novel biomarkers identification. However, the rate of return on adoption of personalized medicine may compel consumers to accept the therapy. Nevertheless, consumers may have to pay more during short-term treatment of personalized medicine, but the long-term return from the application of medicine will aid in attaining substantial results. Recommendation Companies may reduce the cost of short-term adoption personalized medicine. This includes engagement in intensive research and development on personalized medicine, which contributes to attainment of a less costly personalized medicine. Further, patient recruitment should be enhanced in order to ensure that adoption of the medicine takes place effectively. Furthermore, companies should focus on application personalized medicine principles during the development process in order to evaluate whether the drug has the potential of earning the desired benefit. Conclusion Personalized medicine is the new move towards medicine, in the future. As such, patients will always be tested for various medical conditions and diseases. The testing process will involve identification of the genetic code or risk of exposure of an individual towards preselected diseases. Consequently, personalized approach will be applied on the individual in order to curb the spread of the disease or minimize risk of exposure of an individual on various medical conditions. This will contribute significantly towards a reduction in the cost of healthcare. However, individuals will need to comprehend the functionality of personalized medicine and genetic testing. This is because some individuals believe that genetic testing tends to cause more problems than what it solves. This leads to the development of legal, moral, and ethical questions, which have remained unanswered for a long period. Nevertheless, personalized medicine will lead to a significant cost-effective treatment within health systems. References Hunt, S. (2008). “Pharmacogenetics, personalized medicine, and race”. Nature Education. 1(1). Jain, K. (2009). Textbook of Personalized Medicine. Basel, Switzerland: Springer Science Business Media, LLC. Newman, T, & Freitag, J. (2011). Personalized Medicine Development. Retrieved from: http://appliedclinicaltrialsonline.findpharma.com/appliedclinicaltrials/CRO%2FSponsor/Personalized-Medicine-Development/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/730577 Usnews.com. (2011). DukeMedicine. Retrieved from: http://health.usnews.com/health conditions/cancer/personalized-medicine Read More