Hitting the Big-Time

FDA has approved Novartis' Ilaris to treat a rare, genetic autoinflammatory disease, reports the Wall Street Journal. The paper's Health Blog adds that Ilaris is an example of that prized goal, personalized medicine. "It's also the first concrete result of Novartis's seven-year effort to target the genetic causes of disease. If it can find and fix the genetic switches that make people sick, Novartis believes, it will find truly effective drugs that patients need -- and that insurers are willing to pay for," the news article says. Novartis hopes that Ilaris will then act as an entry into more common genetic diseases.