Health Care Blog

Precision Medicine Is Already Working to Cure Americans: These Are Their Stories

During his State of the Union Address, President Obama announced that he is launching a new initiative that will help deliver the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. Precision medicine gives medical professionals the resources they need to target the specific treatments of the illnesses we encounter, further develops our scientific and medical research, and keeps our families healthier. As the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome, America is well-positioned to lead in a new era of medicine. 

While most of today's medical treatments have been designed for the average patient, precision medicine allows us to be more effective than a "one-size-fits-all" technique. It's an emerging approach to promoting health and treating disease that takes into account individual differences in people's genes, environments, and lifestyles. This makes it possible to design targeted treatments for cancer and other diseases. As the President noted in his speech, this revolutionary approach has even reversed cystic fibrosis, an illness once thought unstoppable. 

This approach is already saving lives, giving those in the medical field better options, and helping keep families healthy.  Read a few of their stories: 

William Elder Jr. 

William Elder, Jr. was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF) at the age of eight, when the life expectancy for CF patients was very low. Now at 27, Bill is alive thanks to Kalydeco, a treatment of a particular form for his cystic fibrosis and a remarkable drug that treats the underlying cause of his CF, rather than the symptoms.

At a congressional briefing in 2013, Bill told members of the U.S. Senate that just knowing that there were individuals who were researching his condition gave him hope and the strength to continue his treatments and work to be healthier every day. Bill described waking up in the middle of the night after taking his new treatment for the first time. “I sat on the floor of my room for a while slowly breathing in and out through my nose, and then I realized that was it. I had never been able to easily breathe out of my nose before. This was something profound,” he said. He recalls telling his parents, "For the first time in my life, I truly believe that I will live long enough to be a grandfather.”

Behind the Budget: Dr. Julian Harris, OMB Associate Director for Health

"Behind the Budget" is a series of posts featuring audio stories from staffers from across the Office of Management and Budget, discussing aspects of the budget process that most Americans don't get to see.

In some ways, it's always budget season for the OMB health policy team: At any point in the year, they're likely to be either developing, negotiating, or implementing two or three fiscal year budgets at a time. This year's budget in particular includes a range of proposals, from those that make efficient improvements to health care acess and quality, to those with broader public health implications. That means, for instance, programs that invest in preparedness and disease prevention, efforts to combat antimicrobial resistance, and the NIH-lead effort to accelerate advances in the field of precision medicine.

Meet Dr. Julian Harris, OMB Associate Director for Health.