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Novartis’s newly approved biologic drug, Ilaris, treats a tiny population with a rare autoinflammatory disease. But it is an example of popular dream among drug makers: to create medicines that are tailored for patients with particular genes, often called personalized medicine.

As science advances, many companies are looking for genetic markers of a disease or a patient that will help them develop more effective medicines for smaller populations of patients, like Novartis’s own cancer drug Gleevec and Genentech’s Herceptin. That way, the treatment is more effective for those patients and insurance is likely to cover the cost, according to the WSJ.

Creating personalized medicines isn’t easy, however. Both diseases and genes are complex, and biomarkers that seem promising in early testing don’t necessarily pan out in later stages of development. Also, insurers might not pay for the genetic tests needed to test individuals for the markers.

Novartis began its efforts to focus on the genetic causes of disease seven years ago, according to the WSJ. The endeavor marked a shift in thinking from the traditional blockbuster model of drug development where companies tried to make the next big drug that would be used widely by millions of patients.

And, the method allowed the Swiss drug maker to salvage an old compound that had been shelved, reports BusinessWeek.

Now, Novartis hopes to expand the use of Ilaris by looking for related genetic disorders, to “take rare diseases and use them as an entrance to more common ones — that wherever science is strong and [disease] mechanisms are understood, we’ll be able to make progress quite quickly,” Mark Fishman, Novartis’s research chief, told the WSJ.

DNA image via Wikimedia Commons

Read more here: 
Novartis Scores Big Hit on Small Market With Gene-Based Medicine