Precision medicine is crossing a historic threshold in 2026. Since the beginning of the year, the U.S. FDA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) have approved a total of 14 new gene and cell therapies, compared to 8 for the entirety of 2025. These treatments, which directly modify a patient's genetic makeup to correct the cause of a disease rather than its symptoms, now address pathologies as diverse as sickle cell disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, certain pediatric leukemias, and, significantly, a first gene treatment for non-small cell lung cancer. The medical paradigm is shifting: diseases are no longer treated, biology is reprogrammed. (
The most spectacular case is that of Casgevy, the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing therapy developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics for sickle cell disease. Approved in December 2023, it has since treated over 3,200 patients worldwide, with a functional cure rate of 94% – patients no longer experience vaso-occlusive crises and have normal hemoglobin levels. The cost, initially set at $2.2 million per patient, has been reduced to $1.4 million through "pay-for-performance" reimbursement agreements with the British (NHS), French (HAS), and German healthcare systems. In France, the national health insurance covers the entire treatment for eligible patients. (
Oncology is the field where precision medicine is yielding the most transformative results. CAR-T therapies – which reprogram a patient's T-cells to specifically attack cancer cells – have shown complete remission rates of 73% in acute lymphoblastic leukemias and 58% in diffuse large B-cell lymphomas, according to a meta-analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine in February 2026. Novartis, with its second-generation Kymriah, and Gilead/Kite, with Yescarta, dominate this market, valued at $18 billion in 2026. The next frontier: solid tumors, historically resistant to CAR-T, where Phase II trials show encouraging results in triple-negative breast cancer and glioblastoma. (
Large-scale genomic sequencing, made accessible by the dramatic drop in costs – a whole genome now costs $85, down from $100 million in 2001 – allows for the identification of each patient's specific mutations and the proposal of a tailored treatment. In France, the Plan France Médecine Génomique 2025-2030, with a budget of €1.5 billion, aims to sequence 500,000 genomes by 2030 through its two national platforms (SeqOIA in Paris and AURAGEN in Lyon). Artificial intelligence is accelerating interpretation: DeepMind has developed AlphaFold3, capable of predicting protein-drug interactions with 92% accuracy, paving the way for the design of personalized treatments in weeks instead of years. (
The challenges remain considerable: economic accessibility in developing countries, risks of off-target effects from gene-editing technologies, ethical issues related to germline modification, and the training of healthcare professionals in these new approaches. But the trajectory is irreversible. As Professor Emmanuelle Charpentier, 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and co-inventor of CRISPR, summarizes: "We have moved from the era of treatment to the era of cure. 21st-century medicine no longer manages diseases – it eradicates them." (
