Herceptin- A Revolutionary Tool among Personalized or Customized Medicines

Abstract

Our current medicinal practices are based on population averages. Medicines discovered in one research centre of a particular country and tested on animals and a broad population available there, are used for the treatment of worldwide population. Medicines are applying based on statistical averages gained from their randomized clinical trials. The drugs available in the world markets are only effective in 50% of the total population. Rest of them are taking medicines like placebo, means they do not produce any effects actually. It is due to the genetic differences. We all are different in every aspect. Our choices of food, our cloths, our dreams, ambitions, rituals, and cultures everything is different. But medical system prescribes drugs based on “one size fits to all”. How can that be sensible? Here comes the importance of personalized medicine. Personalized medicine or precise medicine (PM) is a newer approach of pharmacogenomics under progression. It is actually a customized kind of medicine meant for individual patients according to their genetic makeup. For that we thoroughly understand the patient details not only age and sex but in a detailed way including their genetical variations. So we can understand their drug responsiveness as early as possible. That’s why precise or personalised medicines are also called as genomic medicines. And it will also eliminate the time, cost and failures in the clinical trials which are serious issues that developing countries currently facing.