New Market Participants
Consumer demand for personalized care is creating new opportunities for market participants, for example:

• DTC Diagnostics: The direct-to-consumer (DTC) diagnostic market is growing and controversial. Genetic testing products for in-home use are empowering consumers with real-time information, enabling them to predict medical risks, detect disease earlier and better manage their health status. Market research analysts estimate the size of the global market for genetic testing at $730 million, with a 20 percent annual growth rate. Though a relatively small portion of this market, DTC testing is expected to grow rapidly in response to consumer demands and declining prices.
• Consumer Products: Consumer products companies are not only leveraging the new science in the development of new products but also have the marketing expertise and insights to target consumers that many healthcare organizations don't have. Food and beverage companies have long fortified their products with vitamins and other nutrients, and through advancements in science and food manufacturing will increasingly tailor products, packaging and promotional activities that appeal to health-conscious consumers. As early as 2003, Nestle announced that it was "moving from an agrifood business to an R&D-driven nutrition, health and wellness company." The pace of growth in this area, however, may be set by complex issues such as establishment of a regulatory approval pathway for the validation of health claims, intellectual property protections and cost of research and development.
• Telecom and Technology. Technology companies, including some with little or no health expertise, are capitalizing on emerging opportunities to manage vast quantities of genetic and other health data and build IT infrastructure and connectivity solutions.

Changing healthcare paradigms

• The growth of personalized medicine will change the role of traditional healthcare organizations and create new challenges. Most notably, it is one of the market forces driving the changing business model of big pharma away from the blockbuster drug model to a more collaborative model focused on outcomes and specialized therapies.
• Primary care providers may have to build new service lines around prevention and wellness in order to replace revenues lost from traditional medical procedures. When they do, they can expect to face low-cost competition from non-healthcare companies skilled in consumer marketing and consumers armed with knowledge of their options. In addition, physicians will need training in genomics and proteomics to stay relevant in personalized medicine. To educate the next generation of physicians and nurses in the complex issues raised by genomic and proteomic science, universities will have to update their programs.
• How payers approach personalized medicine will be critical, as their reimbursement schemes will influence the business models of pharma and diagnostics companies as well as providers who depend on third-party payment. Payers that want to embrace the new science will have to rethink how they define coverage. Insurance premiums today are based on actuarial statistics that apply to large, predictable populations. By contrast, personalized medicine targets small populations which are far less stable and predictable from an actuarial standpoint.

"There is an urgent need to increase the value of healthcare, but we can't get there by fixing the healthcare of yesterday," said Gerald McDougall, principal in charge of personalized medicine and health sciences at PricewaterhouseCoopers. "We need to replace our current focus on treating disease with a better approach that is personalized, preventive, predictive and participatory, the basic tenants of personalized medicine. Greater collaboration around personalized medicine should be a key strategy for health reform."