AstraZeneca
Dedicated to Informed Patient Treatment

In today’s society, individuals live longer, resulting in an ageing population that is also affected by multi-morbidities. New innovative treatments, e.g. cancer therapies, are available but are expensive to produce and are not effective for all. The rising cost of medicines is becoming increasingly unaffordable to healthcare systems across the world. Precision medicine, which tailors treatment to a patient’s genetic profile, is an increasing focus for AstraZeneca (AZ), a global, science-led biopharmaceutical corporation. To that end, AZ will enable clinicians to match medical treatments to the individual characteristics of each patient. “The great advance of personalised medicine, in oncology, has been the realisation that some tumours are driven by individual genes. So if you can find out which genes these are, you can develop a medicine that’s best for that tumour, and then select patients that are best for that medicine,” mentions Ruth March, Senior Vice-President of Precision Medicine, R&D Oncology at AstraZeneca.

AZ focuses on providing medicines that make a real difference to patient care, and precision medicine is at the heart of its commitment to patient-centric science and innovation. Using innovative diagnostic tests to evaluate individual responses to treatments, AZ aims to select appropriate and optimal therapies for patients who will benefit from them most. Further, AZ applies precision medicine approaches across all therapy areas and in over eighty per cent of drug projects in its pipeline, which sets them apart from its competitors. AZ’s precision medicine centres on delivering the most appropriate therapy to a patient based on their disease’s clinical and molecular features. The development of such therapeutic agents that target molecular mechanisms is driving innovation in clinical-trial strategies.

We are taking personalised healthcare beyond its great heritage in oncology to bring targeted medicines to patients with cardiovascular disease and diabetes using biomarkers and diagnostic tests

Although progress has been made, modifications to existing core paradigms in oncology drug development will be required to fully realise the promise of precision medicine.

Earlier this year, AZ announced a new strategic collaboration with tech-based startup Aidence to provide artificial intelligence (AI) software solutions to hospitals across Europe, helping to enable and increase lung cancer diagnosis at earlier stages. The AI software will allow better detection and follow-up of incidental pulmonary nodules (IPNs) that sometimes can be cancerous. Apart from that, AZ is also collaborating with other leaders in precision medicine to identify novel biomarkers to guide and treat life-threatening diseases of the heart muscle, such as dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and the inherited muscle-wasting condition, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

Previously, AZ has signalled its intention to develop a diagnostic test to identify patients who respond best to the therapy in a Phase III trial of new investigational asthma treatment. After entering into collaboration with the Montreal Heart Institute in Quebec, AZ is researching genomes of up to 80,000 patients to find genes linked to cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Going forward, AZ has joined the China Association of Health Promotion Education and Burning Rock Biotech, a Chinese personalised oncology firm, to hold an interactive seminar to increase the understanding of precision medicine and raise the awareness of genetic diagnosis in oncology clinical practice. The forum involved a series of TED-style seminars offered by five leading experts in the fields of oncology clinical diagnostics, pathology and pharmacoeconomics. “We are taking personalised healthcare beyond its great heritage in oncology to bring targeted medicines to patients with cardiovascular disease and diabetes using biomarkers and diagnostic tests,” concludes Ruth.