Dive Brief:

• Administration officials have confirmed that President Obama will seek hundreds of millions of dollars for a new initiative to develop medical treatments that are tailored to genetic and other characteristics of individual patients. 
• This proposal was mentioned briefly in the President's State of the Union address, and is expected to unfold in greater detail over the next several weeks. The idea is described by Obama as "precision medicine" and is sometimes called "personalized medicine" or "individualized medicine."
• The money would support biomedical research at health agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the regulation of diagnostic tests by the Food and Drug Administration.  

Dive Insight:

There's enough evidence that precision medicine is effective to support Obama's funding request. So far, existing tests can analyze the DNA in normal or diseased tissue and help doctors identify patients with cancer or other diseases who are most likely to benefit from a particular treatment. Tests can also help identify those who may be harmed or not respond to treatments. 

Patients with cystic fibrosis, for example, have seen promise through this approach, Obama said at his SOTU address: According to reports, the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis was discovered by a team that included NIH director Dr. Francis S. Collins. Since then, the FDA has approved a drug that has been effective for patients with a genetic mutation responsible for some cases of the disease.