Personalized Medicine in Europe

Scientific breakthroughs bring new opportunities to address disease and improve health outcomes for many communities in many parts of the world. Frequently, however, these advances come at an increased cost, and some communities do not benefit from the improvements in healthcare and health outcomes. Furthermore, manymedicines do not effectively treat some patients or are even harmful, as illustrated by the finding that over 6% of acute hospital admissions are caused by serious adverse reactions to medicines.1 In addition, our population is aging and chronic diseases are becoming more prevalent. These challenges put an increasing pressure on health systems. Personalized medicine has emerged as a concept to help address these challenges with strategies for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment tailor-made for individuals or groups of individuals. The aim is to make sure that patients receive the specific interventions that work best for them and that time and money is not wasted on trial and error. Initiatives in personalized medicine have been launched in many parts of the world. Perhaps best known is the precision medicine initiative launched by US President Obama in his State of the Union address in January 2015. In Europe, efforts are under way to implement personalized medicine, as recognized in the conclusions of the Council of the European Union at its meeting on 7 December 2015.2