From bench to Brussels and back: co-producing personalized medicine in the European Union

Personalized medicine (PM) has emerged as both a major scientific endeavor and a strategic policy priority in the European Union (EU). Drawing on discourse theory and the science and technology studies concept of co-production, we use PM as a case of a co-produced scientific and policy project to examine not only how scientific advances shape policy agendas but also how EU political priorities, funding programs, and governance frameworks shape the scientific field. The study employs a qualitative comparative document analysis of scientific publications and EU policy documents published between 2000 and 2025. Scientific discourse and political narrative were analyzed separately before being compared to identify areas of convergence, divergence, and co-production. The analysis shows that scientific discourse evolved from genomics toward multi-omics, systems medicine, and AI-enabled, data-intensive research, consolidating into platform science organized around shared infrastructures, interoperable data ecosystems, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. In parallel, the EU’s political narrative evolved from promoting genomics-based healthcare innovation to positioning PM as a strategic instrument for digital transformation, competitiveness, and health-system reform. Our findings demonstrate the reciprocal co-production of science and policy in shaping PM as an institutionalized field.