PPD has published a very nice white paper that provides an overview of the ways in which biomarkers are used in the clinical stages of drug development.
Among the more interesting data and case studies in the report (and there is plenty of both), is a figure that shows the percent of clinical trials that utilize efficacy and segmentation biomarkers by therapeutic area.
This figure shows the percentage of open clinical trials listed on clinicaltrials.gov that use genetic biomarkers, separated by therapeutic area. Reproduced from Precision Medicine – Using Biomarkers To Accelerate Clinical Development published by PPD (Dec, 2013).
Given the heterogeneity of cancer it is not surprising to see that patient segmentation biomarkers are used most commonly in this therapeutic area. It will be interesting to see if increased understanding of heterogeneity in other diseases (if present) increases use of segmentation biomarkers in other therapeutic areas over the coming years.