Precision medicine aims to deliver the right intervention to the right patient at the right time. Genomics helps tailor prevention and treatment to a person’s molecular profile rather than relying only on clinical presentation.
In oncology, germline and tumour biomarkers can guide targeted therapies, immunotherapies and companion diagnostics. Actionable alterations in genes such as BRCA1/2, EGFR, ALK, BRAF, KRAS and ERBB2/HER2 may influence treatment selection in the appropriate clinical context.
Pharmacogenomics examines how inherited variation affects drug metabolism, efficacy and toxicity. In a cohort of 10,000 patients, 91% carried at least one actionable genotype among five implemented drug–gene interactions.1
Clinical evidence is also emerging at implementation scale: a multicentre crossover trial found that a 12-gene pharmacogenetic panel with genotype-guided prescribing reduced clinically relevant adverse drug reactions compared with standard care.2
Precision medicine extends beyond DNA. Transcriptomics, epigenomics, proteomics, metabolomics, digital pathology and advanced bioinformatics can provide complementary views of disease biology.
The field is moving toward gene and RNA therapies, genome editing, regenerative medicine and decision support informed by carefully validated artificial-intelligence methods.
Clinical impact
- Targeted therapies and companion diagnostics
- Pharmacogenomic-guided prescribing
- Disease-specific surveillance
- Gene- and RNA-based therapies
- Clinical-trial matching and personalized prevention