Integrating diagnostics and therapeutics: revolutionizing drug discovery and patient care

Over the next five years it is widely anticipated that the molecular diagnostics industry will continue to grow at double-digit pace to meet increasing demand for personalized medicine. A wide variety of drugs in late preclinical and early clinical development is now being targeted to disease-specific gene and protein defects that will require co-approval of diagnostic and therapeutic products by regulatory agencies. For clinical laboratories and pathologists, this integration of diagnostics and therapeutics represents a major new opportunity to emerge as leaders of the new medicine, guiding the selection, dosage, route of administration and multi-drug combinations, and producing increased efficacy and reduced toxicity of pharmaceutical products.