Medicine Tailored to You: How Far Science Has Come and Where the Promise Stops

When the Human Genome Project was completed it had cost about $2.7 billion over roughly thirteen years, according to the US National Human Genome Research Institute. Between 2006 and 2015 the cost of reading a single draft genome fell from about $14 million to under $1,500. Does that mean medicine will be made to measure for each patient tomorrow? The answer is more careful than the headlines.

The Map Is Cheaper, but It Is Not Enough

The genome is a text too long for the eye, and this is where artificial intelligence came in. The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for protein structure prediction, and to David Baker for computational protein design. This achievement shortens years of laboratory work, but it stops at structure; from structure to a tested and safe medicine there is a long road of trials.

The Vaccine Made for One Tumour

The closest match to the promise is the personalised messenger-RNA vaccine: the mutations in a patient's tumour are analysed, and the vaccine is designed to train the immune system to recognise them. In a phase I trial in pancreatic cancer (Nature, 2023), 16 patients received the vaccine and eight of them responded immunologically. But it was a small trial with no control group, and its authors themselves call for larger studies.

On 19 August 2026 MSD and Moderna announced preliminary phase III results in melanoma (1,137 patients after surgery), reporting that the primary goal, survival free of recurrence, was met when the vaccine was combined with an immunotherapy, compared with the immunotherapy alone. The size of the benefit and the safety data have not yet been published, and the results have not been peer-reviewed. The phase II trial had shown, according to The Pharmaceutical Journal, a reduction of about 44% in recurrence or death. So this is a promising step awaiting its details.

Will Tailored Drugs Be Printed at the Pharmacy?

In August 2015 the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first three-dimensionally printed drug, Spritam, for epilepsy, made in layers of drug powder. But it is a uniform tablet for everyone that happens to be made by printing, not a medicine designed for one person's genes. The popular picture of a printer in the neighbourhood pharmacy designing a molecule for you in minutes is, as far as we have seen, an idea and not an accepted practice. And the relation between gene and disease is seldom linear, since many genes interact with environment and lifestyle.

How Should We Read a Medical Headline?

When a headline announces a "personalised treatment", ask four questions: at what stage of trials is it? How many took part? Was it compared with a control group? Have the results been published after peer review? A phase I trial measures feasibility and early safety in a few people, while a phase III compares with the existing treatment in a larger group. Between a press announcement and a peer-reviewed publication lies a difference worth waiting for, and no treatment decision should be built on it.

Genetic Data: A Heavy Trust

The genome is the most intimate thing a person owns, and it concerns relatives too. Precision medicine should therefore rest on informed consent, a ban on using data beyond its purpose, and safeguards protecting individuals and families from discrimination. In the Kingdom, the Saudi Genome Program, under Vision 2030, aims to build a database reflecting the genetic makeup of society and to develop personalised medicine; its planned outcomes include premarital and newborn screening. We think the value of such databases grows as the rights of their owners are kept and their benefits are open to all, not to a wealthy few.

All this is general knowledge, not a diagnosis of anyone nor a treatment recommendation; a patient's reference is his or her specialist doctor. To take the scientific means while relying on God is the best way to meet a title that promises much.