Dr Peter Paul Yu Explains Current Challenges With Precision Medicine

We need to bring together our real-world data and our reimbursement systems to recognize the fact that a lot of what could be gained by precision medicine is going to be based on a lot of research, explained Peter Paul Yu, MD, FASCO, FACP, physician-in-chief, Hartford HealthCare Cancer Center.

Transcript

What current challenges are there in precision medicine?

I think that the number of drugs that are either FDA approved or compendium listed based on precision medicine test is still fairly small; maybe a couple dozen or less. There are many more drugs in the pipeline, of course, but a lot of those will crash and burn on the way and never make it. So, there is a lot of work to be done in drug development to identify drugs that are effective and tolerable for a target, and we’re still very much in the research world realm of development.

We need to bring together our real-world data and our reimbursement systems to recognize the fact that a lot of what could be released and gained by precision medicine is going to be based on a lot of research, and unless we find a way to fund it at a time when we’re still in the research mode, you’d be very slow to realize the benefits of precision medicine.