One of the next big shifts that the pharmaceutical industry will need to adapt to is the death of the blockbuster model, with which comes the emergence of personalised healthcare. Roche has experience in this area from its development of Herceptin#174;, and has now, with Genentech and OSI Pharmaceuticals, allied with Abbott Laboratories to develop a test to better target cancer patients being treated with Tarceva#174;. This article traces the development of Tarceva, advances related to a targeted test for its use, and progress in other personalised healthcare tests to date.