Finding a Liability-free Space in Which Personalized Medicine can Bloom

Personalized medicine uses genetic and other screening tests to predict a patient's response to specific drug and biologic therapies (together “drugs”), with the aim of choosing a treatment that will provide benefits while avoiding drug‐related harms. There are two schools of thought on how tort liability may affect personalized medicine, i.e., whether fear of lawsuits will tend to accelerate progress or slow it down. Tort suits include product liability suits against manufacturers and negligence suits against physicians and other providers of health‐related services. Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (2007) 82, 461–465; doi:10.1038/sj.clpt.6100335; published online 22 August 2007