Theranostics: Guiding therapy
11/23/2004 R&D Directions Staff Pharmalive (www.pharmalive.com) A new term has entered the pharmaceutical developer’s glossary: theranostics. This word, created by the diagnostics company PharmaNetics, defines the development of diagnostic tests that can identify which patients are most suited for a drug and provide feedback on how well the drug is working. The demand for theranostics is substantial, and the companies that produce these tests are reporting high-growth revenue rates. These companies tout the benefits of theranostic products: Patients get optimal treatment and excessive health-care expenditures can be reduced. These products will become more important in the coming years as health-care resources become even more limited, experts predict. Theranostics are a rapidly evolving group of specialized molecular diagnostic tests that are viewed as improving the real-time treatment of disease, making treatment more cost-effective, and adding value to the drug-development process. The concept of combining a drug with a diagnostic is also known as predictive medicine, personalized medicine, integrated medicine, pharmacodiagnostics, and Dx/Rx partnering. Theranostics go beyond traditional diagnostic products that only screen or confirm the presence of a disease. Theranostics can predict risks of disease, diagnose disease, stratify patients, and monitor therapeutic response. Theranostic products can provide physicians with information that enables them to individualize and optimize the therapeutic regimen of the patient. The physician may make better-informed decisions on timing, quantity, type of drugs, and choice of treatment procedure based on the relevant information provided by these tests. Recent advances in the understanding of the molecular pathways of disease have [...]