The integration of genomics is crucial for healthcare to become more personalized, and the Genome of Greece initiative is helping do just that, writes Pharmacogenomics and Pharmaceutical Biotech Prof George P. Patrinos, of the University of Patras, Greece.

The Ubiquitous Pharmacogenomics (U-PGx) consortium has launched the U-PGx project in an effort to overcome existing barriers and deficiencies in healthcare systems and health infrastructure so as to establish a clinical decision support framework to deliver care that is more personalized and cost-effective, adaptable and able to be implemented in many countries, regardless of language, infrastructure, and healthcare system characteristics.

The field of pharmacogenomics focuses on the way a person's genome affects his or her response to a certain dose of a specified medication. Prof George P. Patrinos discusses a model provided by artificial intelligence and machine learning which may guide and personalize treatment that maximizes clinical benefits and minimizes the risks for patients, thus fulfilling the promises of personalized medicine.

Pharma companies are in constant need of novel technologies for drug design and development especially in the modern digital health era. To this end, AI, neural networks and machine learning will play a crucial role in the design and development of new drugs as well as drug repurposing/repositioning. As such, this new discipline holds promise and has slowly begun to revolutionize pharmaceutical industry, in concert with -omics technologies.