On 14th May 2018, WHO European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncomunnicable Diseases held a meeting of the minds on personalized medicine and opportunities for the prevention and control of NCDs.
The meeting brought together relevant stakeholders from Russia and the WHO Europe NCDs Office: senior officials of the WHO European Office, Russian Ministry of Health, National Institute for Health and Welfare (Finland), European Bioinformatics Institute, Evgeny Shlyakhto, Director General of the Almazov Centre, O.M. Drapkina, Director of the National Centre for Preventive Medicine (Moscow), influential scientists from leading European institutions, and the WHO Europe experts.
The participants discussed personalized medicine and its relevance for the Russian Federation, and potentially for other countries of Eurasian Economic Union/CIS. In particular, they explored the potential of personalized medicine to help fight NCDs.
Personalized medicine and NCDs nexus were viewed through the lens of Health 2020, and included the consideration of how it might accelerate achievement of the international targets relevant to NCD prevention and control. The meeting will result in the analysis of personalized medicine in the Russian Federation and a set of recommendations for national and regional implementation.
Background
Personalized medicine refers to a ‘medical model using characterization of individuals’ phenotypes and genotypes for tailoring the right therapeutic strategy for the right person at the right time, to determine the predisposition to disease and to deliver timely and targeted prevention’.
Alternative terms are ‘stratified’ and ‘precision’ medicine. Genomic and non-genomic biomarkers should enable identifying patients who are more likely to respond to therapy and avoid those most likely to experience side-effects. In principle, it is an approach to healthcare that puts the citizen at the centre in that it allows tailor-made strategies for diagnosis, treatment and prevention to be designed.
As such, it should fit well with WHO’s advocacy for more person-centred healthcare which lies at the heart of its WHO European Health Policy framework, Health 2020.