Industry Leaders Urge Caution Amid the Surge of Precision Medicine

Modern medicine has entered the era of precision medicine, an innovative transformation hailed as the third revolution in medical history, which also poses challenges to existing diagnostic and therapeutic models. For China, adapting to this trend and rapidly establishing new diagnostic and therapeutic frameworks is a critical issue concerning national public health. On December 2, during the healthcare session of the Caixin Summit focused on precision medicine, Thermo Fisher Scientific (hereinafter referred to as

Gianluca Pettiti, President of Thermo Fisher Scientific China; Hai Yan, Chief Scientist at Genetron Health; Jiang Wan, Senior Vice President of Betta Pharmaceuticals; and Yue Wu, President and Chief Strategy Officer of BioDuro-Sundia, shared insightful perspectives on policy, clinical applications, cutting-edge technologies, and future opportunities in precision medicine.

Precision medicine gained widespread recognition after being featured in President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address. However, many products that have been focused on or utilized within the industry over the past two to three decades already align with the concept of precision medicine. From quantitative fluorescence techniques in the 1980s, to first-generation sequencing and digital PCR, and subsequently to next-generation sequencing, these products employed for molecular diagnostics or genetic analysis all fall under the applications of precision medicine.

In March this year, the National Health and Family Planning Commission issued the “Notice on Issues Concerning the Management of Clinical Laboratory Tests,” opening a fast-track channel for laboratory-developed tests (LDTs). Subsequently, the full text of the “Outline of the 13th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development” explicitly included biotechnology and precision medicine in Chapter 23, which outlines plans to support the development of strategic emerging industries. To date, the major national special project on precision medicine has been successfully approved, with more than 60 research projects successively launched. China’s version of the Precision Medicine Initiative is now being vigorously implemented.

Jiang Zhicheng stated that establishing an “ecosystem” for precision medicine is crucial in the context of national competition and during its early developmental stages. In future work deployments, the advancement of precision medicine requires collaborative efforts among hospitals, government bodies, academia, and relevant stakeholders, including pharmaceutical companies and genetic testing institutions.

Thermo Fisher Scientific leverages a comprehensive precision medicine solution comprising omics platforms, gene sequencers, knowledge bases, and cloud platforms, primarily serving four key areas: biobanking, precision oncology, reproductive and general health, and precision medication. Currently, it participates in precision medicine initiatives across multiple countries worldwide, including the U.S. “Cancer Moonshot” program. In China, Thermo Fisher Scientific has established extensive collaborations with healthcare institutions across various sectors, including the creation of joint precision medicine research platforms, joint diagnostic centers, and joint training centers. These efforts aim to establish standardized workflows and application frameworks for next-generation sequencing testing, widely promoting their adoption in molecular diagnostics and laboratory services within healthcare institutions and third-party service providers.

Jiang Zhicheng emphasized that China and the world at large are currently grappling with the burden of cancer. Genetic screening and sequencing can rapidly inform physicians about which treatment modalities are suitable for patients, and Thermo Fisher Scientific aims to leverage precision medicine technologies to assist clinicians in selecting the most appropriate therapeutic regimens.

As discussions on precision medicine gain momentum, the importance of patient data has become widely recognized. However, there are currently no standardized protocols for patient data collection, and biobanks remain isolated silos. How can the burgeoning biobanks across various regions transition from isolated entities to a more valuable, interconnected public sample database?

Wan Jiang of Beta Pharma believes that, when discussing precision medicine within the broader national context, China’s greatest advantage as an industry lies in the government’s strong organizational capacity. Precision medicine, in particular, requires large-scale organization; what matters most is not necessarily government investment, but rather the resulting outcomes. The future of precision medicine demands a national-level organizational effort to integrate genomic sequencing with patients’ clinical conditions—including factors such as life expectancy—in order to truly achieve precision medicine.

“Relying on fragmented information is certainly insufficient. In fact, the United States has a similar initiative aimed at linking genomic sequencing data with disease status, mental health, physiological conditions, and lifespan for one million individuals, and making this database accessible to the public and research institutions. Only in this way will precision medicine become truly meaningful.”

Yan Hai, Chief Scientist at Genetron Health, emphasized that the public needs to exercise patience with precision medicine. Precision medicine, which has garnered widespread attention, is currently in its prime. Clinical adjuncts such as gene sequencing will undoubtedly prove highly effective in the future. However, their eventual application in clinical practice depends on the accumulation of big data, pharmaceutical interventions, genetic typing, and monitoring of patient prognostic responses. Only through clinical trials and several years of data collection can we observe tangible outcomes.

Yan Hai believes that the domestic precision medicine industry in China is currently uneven in quality, with some companies deliberately hyping concepts to secure financing. “When emerging fields arise, skepticism is normal; a rush to jump on the bandwagon without any critical thinking or doubt is actually dangerous.”