E-Paper
Next frontier of health care: Personalisation through collaboration
This article is authored by Dr Pankaj Gupta, senior director & head, Medical Affairs, Pfizer India.
Medicine is entering a new era—one defined less by averages and more by individuals, and where health care is transforming from the traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to one of remarkable precision. Personalised medicine tailors prevention and treatment for an individual’s biology, lifestyle, and environment, using insights from genomics, digital health, and data analytics to improve effectiveness and reduce trial-and-error.
Turning this promise of precision into reality depends on deep collaboration across the health care ecosystem. We are already seeing green shoots in cancer care and migraine management, where shared insights across research, clinical practice, and innovation are accelerating more targeted, patient-centric decisions.
The need for collaboration is most apparent in the management of complex diseases and unmet needs. In cancer care, personalisation is starting to deliver transformative outcomes. For diseases like multiple myeloma, clinicians are no longer limited to standard chemotherapy. Genomic profiling can identify specific mutations in a patient’s tumor, allowing for risk stratification of myeloma patients and using customised therapies and combinations that can be significantly more effective. This precision requires a constant flow of information between researchers, pharmaceutical innovators, and clinicians administering treatment at the last mile. By securely sharing outcomes and biomarker data, stakeholders can build a clearer picture which benefits the patients most, accelerating better development and selection of therapies.
A similar evolution is happening in the management of chronic conditions like migraine. For decades, treatment was often sub-optimal and for many patients a frustrating process of trial and error. Today, healthcare professionals have the options of newer therapies that target specific pathways, thereby more successfully in the disease. Not only is the availability of newer treatment modalities improving patients’ quality of life but the availability of digital health tools is also helping generate valuable real-world data for the ecosystem. When this information is governed, anonymised, and analysed, it reveals important patterns in disease presentation and treatment efficacy that can fuel further innovation.
To bring these advancements to more patients, we need a reliable framework for partnership among researchers, clinicians, pharmaceutical companies, technology developers, regulators, and patient advocacy groups. This involves creating secure environments where insights from both clinical trials and real-world practice can be integrated to paint a complete picture of a disease. The goal is governed data-sharing—shared ethically to advance medical science while rigorously protecting patient privacy.
A country as diverse as India, with its varied disease patterns and demographics, makes this collaborative model essential. Public-private partnerships are crucial for building data infrastructure needed to understand the unique health challenges of our population and to expand access to advanced diagnostics and treatments. For example, partnerships that strengthen disease registries and broaden access to standardised molecular and genetic testing can help clinicians match the right patients to the right therapies earlier—while also improving the quality of evidence generated in real-world settings.
Ultimately, these efforts must remain patient-centric and focused on awareness and active participation. Stakeholders can align on common data standards and consent practices, expand clinician–researcher feedback loops on outcomes, and scale evidence-based access pathways for diagnostics and targeted therapies. By working together to apply scientific and technological progress thoughtfully, the health care community can deliver truly personalised care that improves outcomes and empowers patients in their own health care journeys.
This article is authored by Dr Pankaj Gupta, senior director & head, Medical Affairs, Pfizer India.
