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The partners´ backgrounds and experiences range from pharmaceutical research and devlopment (R&D) in major CNS indications, to global strategy consulting and disease management strategies, and from translational medicine and clinical development in biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to molecular evolution and human genome diversity research.
The team's history began prior to the sequencing of the human genome and when the full brunt of the enabling technologies wave caught the life science industries. Against this background of periods of industry hypes and consolidations, Catenion have helped a growing number of international clients to maneuver through their individual company history and evolve to become some of the most respected organizations in the sector.
In parallel, Catenion have developed unique intellectual capital addressing in breadth and depth the essential items on most life science Chief Executive Officers'agendas: corporate development, research and development strategy, and therapeutic area and product strategy (see Box 1 for a more detailed list).
In addition, Catenion passionately believes in the potential of personalized medicine, was an early advocate of the concept and has worked on the topic within major R&D organizations and for major international client organizations, in addition to in internal studies.
Aspects of personalized medicine
Background
It is widely accepted that prescription drugs do not demonstrate efficacy in 100% of patients. Indeed, depending on the therapeutic area, the efficacy ranges from less than 25% for some antitumour agents to over 80% for some of the new generation pain killers. In one aspect, personalized medicine aims to ensure that only those who will respond in a desired way will receive a particular drug (Box 2).
Obviously, few people would object to the desirability of the benefits of personalized medicine: no (or fewer) prescriptions in vain and therefore no delay in the start of appropiate therapy, no side effects and therefore no secondary condition to be treated, improved timing and dosing for individual patients, and through all this, no futile spending on inappropriate therapies. However, there are some commonly cited major obstacles -and less frequently mentioned counter arguments -as to why personalized medicine has not yet become a reality of medical practice.
Patient profiling and selection for treatment implies that potential patient populations will be reduced and the addressable market will only be a fragment...