‘Moonshot’ Medicine Will Let Us Down – NYTimes.com
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January 29th, 2015 at 12:57 pm
This is a great article. The core issue rests with how we define success, and how we get there. Basic research is meant for discovery of new targets, which takes a long time, and is a completely different skill set and business model than is required in the clinical market. But over time, particularly in cancer, discoveries have accrued and we now have a growing list of actionable cancer mutations for which FDA targeted therapies exist. I have a good friend who has ALK+ lung cancer, and five years after his stage four diagnosis, he is living a full and meaningful life thanks to precision medicine.
For us to fully realize the promises of precision medicine, we need new strategies to broadly enable stakeholders in the marketplace to understand, and widely adopt these validated discoveries in an economically viable way, in addition to continued focus on new discovery.
I agree with the author that lifestyle factors, such as diet and exercise, are tremendous levers for us to pursue in the shift from reactive care to proactive health. Avoidance of disease is clearly the better option – but once disease is present, widespread and informed access to precision diagnosis and personalized therapy should be our goal.