Precision Medicine: The Next Generation

Next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based diagnostics are overtaking traditional approaches in a wide variety of indications, including infectious diseases, rheumatology, transplants, human hereditary disorders, and non-invasive prenatal testing (1). Increasingly, NGS technologies are also used for the molecular characterization of tumor subtypes, thereby unlocking the use of targeted therapies in early- and late-stage cancers. Add to this the fact that NGS sequencing costs continue to drop, reimbursement is improving, and patients are gaining more education on what’s available to them, and it’s easy to see why the number of available NGS tests is only expected to grow (2).