Table 2.

Examples of the approved and clinically tested biomarkers for facilitating the prescription of a particular drug to specific patient subpopulation

Disease	Therapeutic target	Biomarker for the targeted therapeutics	Patient subpopulation likely responsive to targeted therapeutics	Drug therapy specific for patient subpopulation
Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL)	PML–RAR	PML–RAR (gene translocation)	APL with PML–RARα t(15:17) translocation	Arsenic Trioxide
Alzheimer’s	PPAR	apolipoprotein E and TOMM40 genotypes and age	Mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease	Pioglitazone
Breast cancer	HER2	HER2 (gene amplification)	HER2 amplified and/or over-expressed breast cancer	Trastuzumab
	Estrogen receptor	Estrogen receptor (protein expression)	ER overexpressed breast cancer	Tamoxifen
	PARP	BRCA1/2 (mutation)	Breast cancer defective in BRCA1 or BRCA2	Olaparib, veliparib
Cystic fibrosis	CFTR	CFTR G551D mutation	Cystic fibrosis patients with CFTR G551D mutation	Ivacaftor
Hepatitis C infection	HCV non-structural protein 3	IL28B rs12979860 genotype	HCV infected patients with IL28B rs12979860 genotype	Boceprevir
Melanoma	BRAF	BRAF V600E (mutation)	Melanoma with RAF V600E mutation	Vemurafenib, Dabrafenib
	MEK	BRAF mutations	Melanoma with RAF mutations	Trametinib
Post-menopausal osteoporosis	RANK ligand	Post-menopausal women with persistent total hip, femoral neck, or lumbar spine BMD T-scores −1.8 to −4.0, or clinical fracture	Post-menopausal osteoporosis at high risk for fractures	Denosumab