For instance, the US FDA has embraced genomic and personalized medicine as an important solution to pharma industry model for drug development. Talking about the challenges in this field, Dr Patell highlights that, "the major challenge is to find a set of robust biomarkers that have been clinically validated across diverse populations. In addition, the costs of the kit developed for a particular disease -population genotype will need to be competitively priced to enable a large market share. Furthermore, both patient and physician education is required to bring about a change in the practice of medicine towards a targeted, as opposed to a ‘one size fits all', therapeutic approach."

The future of pharmacogenomics in India is bright and will be key in bringing the reality of personalized medicine to the masses in India. "In view of the diversity of the Indian population it is envisaged that pharmacogenomics will play a significant role in the design of therapeutics that minimizes the negative side effects of current drugs and brings individual patient-centric therapy to a large population base," concludes Dr Patell.