PERSONALIZED MEDICINE - Targeted, Personalized Therapy is the Future of Chronic Disease Therapeutics

The global life sciences sector is employing new research and development (R&D) and business models to cost effectively deliver innovation, value, and improved patient outcomes. With the incidence rate for chronic diseases on the rise, pharma companies have realized that the one-size-fits-all, blockbuster drug approach is not the way forward. Instead, they are prioritizing drug portfolios to core therapeutic areas and offering specialty products for specific patient groups.

Another driver for personalized medicine is the rapidly rising need for reimbursement. Payers are focusing on treatments that can provide patient outcomes and fulfill large unmet needs. As a result, pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms are looking to understand the patient genome better and develop therapeutics that target specific patient subsets for more effective and potentially cheaper treatment.

With the chronic disease treatment market ripe for innovation, personalized medicine will move beyond oncology and into areas such as virology and cardiology. For instance, the lipid modulator segment in the cardiology market is aiming at higher personalization. While drugs available today are used mainly to lower total low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) or triglyceride levels, several remedies to increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL) are under development.

Drug manufacturers are planning to take this further with next-generation drugs aimed at specific targets related to increased cardiovascular risk, such as lipoprotein(a), small dense LDL particles, oxidized LDL and HDL particle subpopulations, along with newly discovered targets. Companion diagnostics that employ gene-targeted therapies will also enable personalized treatment.

In the hepatitis C segment, meanwhile, a treatment revolution is underway as the market migrates from protease inhibitors and interferon regimens toward targeted, highly effective, easily tolerated, interferon-free oral therapies. Gilead’s sofosbuvir/Sovaldi has gained first mover advantage and is expected to generate revenues of over $7 billion in 2014.

Moving away from the one-size-fits-all approach (interferons) to more targeted therapies will see the introduction of potent all-oral “terminator” therapies for targeted genotypes, shifting the treatment paradigm from disease management to eradication. Further innovation may even see an all-oral pan-genotypic therapy and a radically short 4- or 6-week treatment regimen for hepatitis C.

To view this issue and all back issues online, please visit www.drug-dev.com.

Jennifer Lazar is the Global Program Director of Frost & Sullivan’s Life Sciences and Connected Health practices. Her expertise includes a deep understanding of various pharmaceutical sectors and impacts on the overall healthcare ecosystem. Her knowledge and thought leadership is supported by more than a decade of market landscape assessments and forecasting, product launch strategies, competitive intelligence, and management. For more information about Frost & Sullivan’s global Life Sciences and Connected Health practices, email Jennifer Carson, Corporate Communications at Jennifer.Carson@frost.com.