FDA Commissioner Marty Makary helped draft the new approach on rare diseases.Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Jason Mast is a general assignment reporter at STAT focused on the science behind new medicines and the systems and people that decide whether that science ever reaches patients. You can reach Jason on Signal at JasonMast.05.

Lizzy Lawrence leads STAT’s coverage of the Food and Drug Administration. She was previously a medical devices reporter. You can reach Lizzy on Signal at lizzylaw.53.

The Trump administration on Monday released detailed guidance for approving the first bespoke medicines crafted to treat patients’ individual mutations.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary and biologics chief Vinay Prasad had already previewed the new approach, known as the plausible mechanism pathway, in a New England Journal of Medicine article in November. But Monday’s rules are step one for actually turning the idea into policy and will provide crucial details for groups hoping to develop such individualized medicines. 

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The new pathway has been greeted enthusiastically by academics, companies, and patient groups who see it as the only way to usher in gene editing-based treatments and other drugs for patients with unique mutations or mutations too rare to interest pharma. 

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