Precision Medicine Then and Now: We Talk with the Retiring President of the Personalized Medicine Coalition, Ed Abrahams

When Bill Clinton announced the sequencing of the human genome in 2000, the New York Times ran the following headline on the front page: "Genetic Code of Human Life is Cracked By Scientists.”We’re still living up to that headline.Ed Abrahams has led the Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC) for twenty years. Before his retirement in December, we asked him to join us to reflect on his tenure and take stock of the field. PMC was established as a “catalyst” and organizer to bring the various stakeholders in personalized medicine together and do the human work that science and business were missing.Ed tells Theral that the political problem may be more difficult than the science. Even with the scientific breakthroughs, he says that what Biden called his Cancer Moonshot has proved more difficult than actually going to the moon!Ed traces the field’s roots back to the groundbreaking announcement of the Human Genome Project and reflects on the significant strides in personalized drug development, which now represents over a third of recent drug approvals, as well as breakthroughs and difficulties on the diagnostics side.Current challenges are regulation in the second Trump era and the persistent practice gap, but Ed ends with excitement for what’s next.The Personalized Medicine Coalition hosts its annual conference in Boston this week, Nov 13-14th.  They have just announced their new president to be Amy Nicole Nayar, formerly Vice President for U.S. Patient Advocacy & Government Affairs at Novartis Gene Therapies This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe