Personalized medicine--trends in molecular diagnostics: exponential growth expected in the next ten years.

Companion diagnostics and stratified medicines will be increasingly used over the next ten years. Current market leaders who have created diagnostic divisions with a focus on biomarker identification will benefit, notably Abbott, AstraZeneca, Novartis, and GlaxoSmithKline. Pricing incentives and improvement in efficacy will drive this market. The US FDA is not likely to mandate stratification of medications, but cost containment for clinical trials will be sufficient incentive for companies to pursue this approach. The next area expected to produce stratified medicines is infectious disease, expanding from HIV to hepatitis C and hepatitis B. Celera is likely to be first to market with diagnostics for genetic variations in hepatitis C and hepatitis B. Metabolic disorders, especially diabetes, are also fertile ground for stratified medicine, likely to catch up to oncology and infectious disease over the next decade.