Personalized medicine slowly taking shape

By Ben Hirschler

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Personalized medicine -- tailoring treatments to an individual's genetic profile -- has been one of the main dreams of the gene revolution, but putting it into practice is proving tough.

While advances are being made in a few areas, so-called pharmacogenetics will not change the commercial landscape for the bulk of pharmaceuticals for several years, drugmakers told the Reuters Health Summit in New York this week.

"Pharmacogenetics is not going to transform this market any time soon," said Jean-Pierre Garnier, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline Plc.

"Let's be clear -- it's going to take 20 years plus. Does that mean you are going to have zero happening? No. It's already happening. But it is going to be very specific examples."

The decoding of the human genome in 2000 sparked hopes that a new era of tailored medicine was just around the corner.

In fact, uncovering the genetic differences that determine how a person responds to a drug, and developing tests, or biomarkers, for those differences, is proving more challenging than initially hoped.

As a result, people with complex diseases like depression are still being prescribed medicines on a trial-and-error basis, and adverse drug reactions remain a major cause of injury and hospitalizations.

That is not stopping companies from investing in the field.  Continued...