Special Initiatives

Personalized Medicine

Investing in Personalized Medicinal Science
and Technology for Improved Patient Care

$50 Million Supports Arizona's Commitment

to Bioscience Excellence

 
Have you ever played the pharmaceutical guessing game? Your doctor prescribes a medication, you take it for two weeks and return to his office because you're still feeling under the weather. He writes a prescription for another medicine, and two weeks later you're back in his office with the same symptoms and no relief. Finally, on the third try, he prescribes a medication that works for you and, after tweaking the dosage for another month, you're finally getting results.

Across the country, patients and doctors routinely play this expensive and time-consuming trial-and-error method of finding effective pharmaceuticals. Doctors use the best data they have to determine which medications are more likely to work on the largest number of people in hopes that patients will respond. But the fact is that drugs work differently on different people.

Imagine another scenario of treatment: doctors use your
genetic information to deter-
mine which medications and dosages will produce the best response, getting you on the road to recovery more quickly and effectively.

With the mapping of the human genome, the second scenario may be closer than we think. Described as the basis of a “medical revolution,” personalized medicine will allow doctors to develop individual strategies for the detection, treatment and prevention of diseases based on a person’s genetic make-up.

Piper Trust's commitment to Personalized Medicine

In its commitment to improve the quality of healthcare in Maricopa County, Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust in January 2006 announced plans to invest up to $50 million over the next five years in the development of personalized medicine to the Valley.

“This initiative supports ongoing endeavors to propel Arizona’s bioscience industry to national prominence,” said Judy Jolley Mohraz, Ph.D., president and CEO of The Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. “We are part of a much larger collaborative effort that will have long-term impact on the region’s economy and directly benefit the residents of Maricopa County. Personalized medicine promises a new level of medical care that utilizes diagnostic methods and treatment based on genetic information.”

Between the Trust’s investment and the funding by the recipient institutions, the amount of new dollars invested into Maricopa County’s economy will be upward of $100 million.

While the new Personalized Medical Science and Technology Initiative is ambitious, it grew out of an investment focus established in the Piper Trust’s initial years of grantmaking and from Virginia Piper’s longstanding interest in cutting-edge medical research and state-of-the-art clinical care.