It is often stressed that many currently-used medicines have a relative efficiency. For instance, anti-depressants are not effective among 20% to 50% of the patients, betablockers fail in 15% to 35% of the persons treated, and one out of five or even three persons suffering from migraine cannot find a proper medicine to alleviate his/her pain (Mamou, 2004e).
It is therefore expected that a personalized medical care with drugs taking account of the genetic make-up of every individual will improve the situation. Thus in the first pages of the annual report published by Burrill & Company – a Californian Bank specialized in the funding of biotechnologies – Steven Burrill, its chief executive officer, predicted that 'the era of a personalized medicine will generate a market characterized by a small volume per each drug, but the range of products developed for each therapeutic target will be much wider than presently'. There is therefore a strong belief in the effectiveness of a forthcoming individualized medicine, that could even be regenerative (tissue or even organ replacement) or preventive (e.g. it would be possible to anticipate the occurrence of a cancer, rather than to have to try to cure it) [Mamou, 2004e]. While acknowledging some breakthroughs (e.g. the drug called Gleevec has shown its efficiency against chronic myeloid leukaemia, and Genentech, Inc.’s Avastin can starve
tumours by blocking the development of new blood vessels), analysts underline that the transition toward a new therapeutic era is quite slow. In the USA, the $250 billion
invested from the late 1960s to 2003 in biotechnologies had a rather low output: out of the 200 most-sold drugs worldwide, only 15% are derived from research and development in the life sciences. In 1996, out of 53 drugs approved for sale worldwide, 9 were derived from biotechnology; in 2000, the figures were 27 and 6; and in 2003, 21 and 14, according to the data provided by the US Food and Drug Administration. Most biotechnology companies continue to spend money in research that does not lead to marketable products. For instance, Vical, after 16 years of research on gene therapy and spending $100 million, has not found a marketable drug (Mamou, 2004e).
Therefore, the deciphering of the sequence of a gene and of the whole genome of an organism sounds like an attractive short cut, and genomics caught the attention of both the public and the stock markets during the last years of the 20th century. Many new genes have been discovered, with each implying the existence of at least one new protein that might have some therapeutic value.
