Personalized medicine market surpasses $28 billion in 2011 | Slone Partners

A new study recently compared the burgeoning personalized medicine industry to the fervor of the dot-com era, estimating that enhanced in vitro diagnostic (IVD) procedures and genetic testing spurred the industry to grow to $28 billion last year.

Kalorama, a medical market research organization, recently published a report titled "World Market for Personalized Medicine Diagnostics," which revealed that while primitive advancements regarding personalized medicine were first explored in the 1950s, only with recent technological improvements has the industry truly been able to expand and provide patients with new, perhaps more effective, treatment options.

"Cost-effective multiplex platforms, high powered software, assays using saliva, urine, and blood instead of biopsied tissue, these are the technological tools that make more sensitive and specific tests possible," lead analyst Shara Rosen said in a statement.

The Food and Drug Administration defines IVD as any tests, either conducted by health professionals or patients in their homes, that detect medical ailments. These tests are often significantly less expensive than both more invasive testing procedures and treatment that occurs later on in the evolution of a disease.

For example, in a 2011 profile for IVD Technology magazine, Polymedco vice president Pete Welsh discusses a home testing kit produced by his company that allows those at risk to develop colon cancer to test themselves. This kit costs $10, which is significantly cheaper than the $4,000 that is usually required to complete a colonoscopy.

Should home testing kits continue to be more common, diagnostic laboratories must be able to respond to a mass influx of data coming directly from consumers. As such, these facilities may need to add more clinical research jobs and laboratory management jobs, which may necessitate hiring a laboratory recruitment agency or clinical research recruiter to find these high-quality workers.

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