NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Pfizer will collaborate with Medco Health Solutions and its United BioSource subsidiary in a research effort based on Pfizer's "precision medicine" approach, which integrates genomic and phenotypic information to help identify patients that may benefit from a new drug.
The partners aim to identify and evaluate patient subgroups in which both investigational and marketed drugs have been shown to be most effective. The firms, which have collaborated previously on product-specific programs, said that they are in the process of identifying collaborative opportunities to apply the precision medicine approach.
According to a statement issued by Pfizer after the close of the market Wednesday, the drivers of precision medicine include "a critical focus on human biology and pathogenic — or disease-causing — mechanisms; effective interpretation and application of genomic information about groups of patients with the same disease; the ability to identify unique information that emerges from patient studies to shed light on treatment responses; and new application of all of this knowledge to every stage of drug discovery and development."
Further details of the collaboration, which was announced at the TEDMED Conference in San Diego, were not disclosed.