Personalized Medicine in Actual Practice

An article in Forbes reports on new findings that show ImClone Systems' colon cancer drug Erbitux and a similar drug from Amgen, Vectibix, may not work in half of colon cancer patients. By using a genetic test, it can tell patients whether they have tumors with a mutation in kras that would make the drugs ineffective. "Largely what personalized medicine will be is telling people which drugs are out there that don't work so don't bother," says Leonard Saltz, Memorial-Sloan-Kettering colon cancer specialist. "Thou shalt not give Erbitux and Vectibix to patients with mutated kras; all it will do is give toxicity and run up the bill."