Karel Petrak
Precision medicine is an approach to prevent and treat diseases that takes into account people’s individual variations in genes, environment, and lifestyle. The current Precision Medicine Initiative of the US Government is to “generate the scientific evidence needed to move the concept of precision medicine into clinical practice”. In the first approximation, precision medicine may provide a more accurate diagnosis of the disease such as cancer, but may not have the means to offer an improved therapy.
The aim of drug targeting is to generate pharmacologically effective drug concentration at the site of disease while keeping a very low/minimal drug concentration in the rest of the body, away from the site of disease. Targeted drugs are thus “precision drugs” needed to bring precision medicine into the clinical practice.
Focusing on the area of cancer therapy, this review examines the essential requirements that must be met for cell/tumour-targeted drug-delivery systems to work. It examines the progress to date and draws conclusions for an optimal paradigm for future drug-delivery systems development.
