New technologies around biomarkers and their interplay with drug development

What conductors are to their orchestras, biomarkers are to their associated technologies. Building fundamental science, supporting early diagnosis of diseases and following their progression, improving efficacy and safety of treatments, optimizing patient selection and adapting dosing of drugs, helping decide which therapy is most appropriate; these are examples of a few contexts in which biomarkers are key players. Technology development can definitely not escape being associated with these steps. In other words, today's biomarkers are the thermometers of tomorrow's therapies. This review provides an overview of recently established platforms as well as new and upcoming technologies for biomarker development in the context of drug development. The roles as well as the pros and cons of different disciplines such as genetics, genomics, proteomics, metabonomics, and assay development will be discussed.