Challenges in Implementing Personalized Medicine in Clinical Practice

Diagnostic testing to identify patients who could benefit from targeted therapies is a cornerstone of personalized medicine in cancer care, but developers face several barriers as they seek to have their products adopted into clinical care. For example, although more than 30% of patients with lung cancer have tumors that are linked to genetic driver mutations, many patients do not receive genetic testing. Furthermore, it is estimated that 25%–35% of cancer patients with an actionable mutation as determined by genomic testing still do not actually receive targeted therapies. This session will feature a discussion about the practice gap between patients who are eligible for targeted therapies and those who receive them and will focus on strategies to optimize the clinical uptake of new personalized medicine technologies.
Panelists will highlight overcoming challenges related to education and awareness, access, data management and interpretation, and coverage and reimbursement.