Targeted therapies
The importance of targeted therapies
We aim to ensure that the right patient is treated with the right dose of the right medicine at the right time. We believe that treatments should become targeted and based on an understanding of a patient’s unique genetic make up and individual response to a medicine.
Traditionally, medicines have been developed with a ‘one-size-fits-all’ model. Approximately half of all patients who take medicines do not respond to them, indicating that there is critical need for a more targeted approach to drug discovery and development.
Advances in biology and computer science are enabling unprecedented analysis of human genes and proteins. These advances help identify patients that may respond positively to particular therapies with new diagnostic tools.
We expect that, in the future, customized therapies and companion diagnostics will help physicians select medicines that have the greatest efficacy and the lowest probability of harmful side effects for individual patients.
Advancing customized therapies at Novartis
Our goal is to optimize patient outcomes by delivering targeted treatments.
By beginning to genetically identify patients who will respond positively to particular therapies, we are starting to tackle two of the greatest challenges in developing drugs: identifying a disease area with a critical, unmet need and assigning studies to test a clinical hypothesis.
Teams across Novartis work together to develop customized therapies for patients.
