Can (and will) governments afford personalized medicine?

'Personalized' (or more specifically targeted) medicines promise aging populations important medium- to long-term benefits, including extended healthy life expectancies. But the time and resources needed to deliver such advances may be significantly greater than optimists expect. Given current methodologies, drugs for limited numbers of older patients are also much less likely to be judged cost effective than treatments for more common conditions in younger populations. There is a consequent danger that private and public funding for personalized medicine development will in the future fall to a level that is significantly below the global public's best interests. Policy-makers should be aware of this risk, and take actions to mitigate it. These include minimizing the costs and complexities associated with marketing personalized medicines and linked diagnostic tests, as well as strengthening intellectual property protection in ways that will allow 'rich world' pharmaceutical price moderation, increased innovator security and enhanced treatment access for poorer populations.