In the State of the Union speech delivered on January 20, President Obama made the first announcement of what seems to be a major policy initiative:
I want the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome to lead a new era of medicine – one that delivers the right treatment at the right time. In some patients with cystic fibrosis, this approach has reversed a disease once thought unstoppable. So tonight, I’m launching a new Precision Medicine Initiative to bring us closer to curing diseases like cancer and diabetes, and to give all of us access to the personalized information we need to keep ourselves and our families healthier. We can do this.
That’s all he said about it in that speech, though one cystic fibrosis patient, William Elder, was invited to sit with the First Lady. (By the way, the cystic fibrosis reversal is not exactly news, and not as widely applicable as once hoped. Only 4 percent of those affected by cystic fibrosis benefit, as Elder does, from Kalydeco, a drug approved by the FDA in 2012, which incidentally costs some $300,000 a year.)
Some observers felt “a bit of déjà vu” – Jeremy Gruber found a rather similar statement in the 1998 State of the Union delivered by President Clinton. Indeed, then-Senator Obama proposed legislation to promote “genomics and personalized medicine” in both 2006 and, with Republican Senator Burr, 2007.
Read full, original article: Precision Medicine in Context
