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17 Oct 2016

Johns Hopkins applies physics and engineering to precision medicine

By Jay Goth

Johns Hopkins plans to launch eight precision medicine centers this year that will highlight areas where new technologies and measurement tools can be applied to improve patient care. The centers will focus on heart failure, genetics, prostate cancer, among other conditions.

“With the use of new measurement tools and data analytics, patients can be divided into very distinct subgroups that are so different in trajectory, it’s almost as if each subgroup represents a different disease.”

Find out more here

16 Oct 2016

Precision Antibiotics

By Jay Goth

At a societal level, once we know the genetic steps to resistance, we could conceivably begin a surveillance system for pre-superbugs. Hospitals routinely sample their facilities for resistant bacteria. Collating those genetic data from across the country or around the world could help scientists catch trends in emerging resistance; with that knowledge, medical officials could temporarily restrict certain antibiotics until the trend reverses.

Photomicrograph of Diplococcus pneumoniae, showing capsular swelling as seen in the Neufeld-quellung test for pneumococcus typing. One of the most common organisms causing respiratory infection.
S 11, slide 7; C57582

“The rate of change of genomics is stunning,” Parkhill said. “And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that there will be point of care sequencing in a short time frame. What that enables us to do is not just ask what antibiotics is this organism resistant to and therefore we shouldn’t use, but also conversely what antibiotics is this organism sensitive to and, therefore, which ones we can use.”

Get more information at STAT

07 Oct 2016

Precision Medicine – More than a Buzzword

By Jay Goth

Precision medicine is an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person.

DNA

In addition to DNA analysis, precision medicine examines the patient’s phenotype and how the patient interacts with his or her environment.

“It is the role of IT, politicians, healthcare professionals, insurance companies, and society as a whole to work together to make precision medicine the standard of care. Human lives are at stake.”

See the entire blog post at Forbes here

15 Sep 2016

More health plans want to pay for drugs based on patient outcomes

By Jay Goth

A survey finds that most health plans would like to pay for many of the highest-priced medicines based on patient outcomes. The findings suggest that insurers hope to get tougher with drug makers as prescription medicines, by some estimates, account for more than one-fifth of overall health care costs.

Specifically, the survey found that 63 percent of health plans had strong interest in outcomes-based contracts for hepatitis C treatments, according to Avalere Health, a consulting firm that last year queried 42 US health plans representing 161 million insured people.

See full article here

06 Sep 2016

Molecule-based prediction of clinical drug responses in cancer

By Jay Goth

The relationships between molecular features and clinical drug responses lay the foundation for optimizing drug therapies based on a patient’s genomic context.

With the fast development and reduced costs of high throughput technologies, more efforts are made to identify genomic markers that can predict drug responses. As precision medicine takes into account the genomic variability of individuals in oncology practice, accurately predicting response to cancer drugs based on molecules becomes a critical issue.

Read the entire article in Oxford Academic’s Bioinformatics here.

03 Sep 2016

Precision Medicine on a Growth Trajectory

By Jay Goth

Implementation of precision medicine programs may be limited today, but initiatives are gaining within the healthcare market, according to a new report from HIMSS Analytics on precision medicine.

“The initiation of the Precision Medicine Initiative has certainly helped bring precision medicine to the forefront of healthcare today, especially in research areas such as cancer,” HIMSS Analytics Director of Research Brendan FitzGerald said.

Read entire post in Healthcare IT

17 Aug 2016

Breast Cancer Screening Primed for Precision Medicine

By Jay Goth

Offering alternative screening tests to young women who had genetic risks could be justified given the radiation from mammograms increased their risk of breast cancer through their lives by 90 per cent, according to Orion Health’s Ian McRae.

“This is what precision medicine is all about – instead of crude ‘one size fits all’, treating all women the same, once we have all this other information you can start treating women differently.” – Ian McRae

See the entire article in Business Day

08 Aug 2016

Forentis to Lead Biotech Investing Roundtable at Precision Medicine Leaders Summit

By Jay Goth

Forentis Fund, a special purpose fund dedicated to saving lives and reducing human suffering by speeding new medical innovations to market, today is pleased to announce that its Managing Partner Jay Goth will be leading a discussion on biotech investing at the Precision Medicine Leaders Summit, a first of its kind gathering of the finest minds in the Precision Medicine field, in San Diego on August 11, 2016. The discussion will focus on the challenges and opportunities of investing in biotech in the emerging age of precision medicine.
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