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European Personalised Medicine and Pharmacogenomics Markets
Frost & Sullivan, Oct 2006, Pages: 71
The Frost & Sullivan research service titled European Personalised Medicine and Pharmacogenomics Market provides an overview of the pharmacogenomic tests, together with the revenues, key market drivers, restraints, and trends in the market. This apart, it provides strategic solutions to the vendors to gain advantage in this growing market, and also discusses the available pharmacogenomics options in detail for other areas to determine a clinical course of therapeutic treatments; for example, cardio-vascular disease, stroke and type II diabetes.
Potential for Early Disease Detection Promoting Market Growth
The ability to detect a disease in its very early stage and the subsequent advantages of better clinical outcomes are proving major drivers for the growing adoption of pharmacogenomic tests across Europe. Pharmacogenomics can be used to detect a predisposition toward a particular disease and for growing disease markets such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer, a genetics-based test could identify patients for long-term prophylactic therapy. This, in turn will decrease the use of expensive therapies and invasive procedures, in addition to reducing bed occupancy and lessening the burden on the healthcare system. Considering these advantages, governments across Europe have initiated campaigns to encourage the population to be screened on certain types of diseases such as cancer, which have significantly helped better patient management.
Despite all this, inherent problems regarding the time and cost associated with the development of diagnostic tests remain major restraints for market growth. Moreover, obtaining intellectual property for pharmacogenomic tests pose significant challenges for companies. 'As companies identify novel compounds, a strong intellectual property system is necessary to stimulate investment in innovation,' notes the analyst of this research service.' It is essential that the European Governments' patent systems offer protection for innovations relating to personalised medicine, as well as high quality patent examination that allows patents of appropriate scope and quality.'
Hybridisation Techniques Remain Dominant
With regard to technology, hybridisation techniques tend to be the major technologies utilised in the field of pharmacogenomics, and fluorescence in-situ hybridisation (FISH) continues to be widely used due to its ability to detect a variety of chromosomal and genetic aberrations such as molecular translocation deletions specific to each entity of haematological malignancies in a single non-dividing interphase cell. The HER-2/neu gene is a prime example of a successful pharmacogenomic test that has both diagnostic and prognostic value. Abbott Diagnostics' (Vysis) PathVysion is a FISH-based test that has an addition of Genetech's Herceptin for patients who may require treatment. The technology is capable of diagnosing multiple gene copies characteristic of HER-2/neu over expression in breast cancer. Developments in the microarray and genotype assay technologies are also expected to aid the growth of the pharmacogenomics during the next few years.
'Among the regional markets, the German pharmacogenomics market was the largest revenue generator in 2005, primarily due to the high level of awareness about pharmacogenomics among medical professionals as well as the public,' says the analyst. 'Following the German market was France, which has radically changed the emphasis on disease management uniformity, focussing more on individual patient management, as the technology of personalised medicine has become inexpensive and more readily available.'
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