What is precision medicine?

• At the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly, Member States endorsed a new resolution on precision medicine.

• It is an important step towards advancing precision medicine as part of efforts to strengthen equitable, effective and sustainable health systems.

What is precision medicine?

• Most medical treatments are designed for the “average patient” as a one-size-fits-all-approach, which may be successful for some patients but not for others. 

• Precision medicine, sometimes known as “personalised medicine” is an innovative approach to tailoring disease prevention and treatment that takes into account differences in people's genes, environments, and lifestyles. 

• The goal of precision medicine is to target the right treatments to the right patients at the right time.

• Advances in precision medicine have already led to powerful new discoveries and treatments that are tailored to specific characteristics of individuals. 

• When integrated responsibly into health systems, precision approaches can improve outcomes across different disease areas and across the life course – from cancer and rare diseases to infectious diseases, maternal, newborn and child health, mental health and noncommunicable diseases. 

• This approach will allow doctors and researchers to predict more accurately which treatment and prevention strategies for a particular disease will work in which groups of people.

What is the scope of the resolution?

• The resolution reflects rapid advances in genomics, diagnostics, data science and digital health, alongside widening global inequities in access to these innovations. 

• Many populations — particularly in low and middle-income countries — remain underrepresented in data and research, limiting the public health impact of precision medicine and risking the widening of health disparities if action is not taken now.  

• Through the resolution, Member States commit to developing and strengthening national policies, infrastructure, workforce capacity and governance frameworks to support the safe, ethical and equitable integration of precision medicine into health systems, aligned with universal health coverage. 

• This includes promoting affordability, ensuring inclusive research and data systems, strengthening regulation and data governance, and fostering collaboration across sectors and regions.

• By placing equity, inclusion and public value at the centre of precision medicine, the resolution reinforces WHO’s commitment to ensuring that scientific advances benefit all people, everywhere, and that no one is left behind in the next era of health innovation.