Personalised medicine (PM) is a medical model that proposes to customise medical decisions, practices, and treatments for the individual patient. It uses targeted medicines aimed at specific molecules that are involved in the patient's disease and takes genetic, clinical, environmental, and lifestyle information about the patient into account. The aim is to select the best therapies for the individual patient to ensure the best outcome and reduce the risk of side effects.
Progress in understanding the link between genomics (and other molecular factors) and disease is an important part of the development of personalised medicine. Pharmaceutical companies are already producing some targeted medicines as a result.