Theranostics and contrast-agents for medical imaging: a pharmaceutical company viewpoint

It is almost becoming a truism to state that the unique opportunities made possible by continuing progresses in biotechnologies, the “omics”, biomedical imaging, computer technologies and nanotechnologies, open avenues to a new management of many diseases, switching from a “population treatment” approach to the concept of “personalized medicine”. Indeed, theranostics is at the heart of Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery’s scope. The concept of “theranostics” was coined by the US consultant John Funkhouser, in a press release from the company Cardiovascular Diagnostics in August 1998, to describe a material that allows the combined diagnosis, treatment and follow up of a disease (1).