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Landmark FDA approval bolsters personalized medicine

The FDA's approval of a cancer drug based on the cancer's biomarkers, rather than its location in the body, further opens the door to personalized medicine.

Our understanding of cancer has been morphing from a tissue-specific disease — think lung cancer or breast cancer — to a disease characterized more by specific genes or biomarkers than by location. A recent FDA decision underscores that transition and further opens the door to personalized medicine.

Two years ago, the director of the FDA’s Office of Hematology and Oncology Products that there was no precedent for

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