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At the heart of personalized medicine is pharmacogenomics, which extends the study of pharmacology to modern genetics. Regardless of physical condition, medical history, or diagnosis, no two patients are the same. Before prescribing certain drugs to a patient, physicians can enhance their clinical judgment with genetic insights determined through individual patient testing.

Personalized pharmacogenomic tests reveal the differences in each patient’s drug metabolism, which is especially helpful in cases where prescribed drugs have a narrow therapeutic window. Such genomic information can help physicians to select the most appropriate treatment and tailor drug dosing based on a patient’s unique genetic makeup. In addition, integrating pharmacogenomics into clinical care can enable physicians to focus treatment by preidentifying responders and nonresponders as well as avoid potentially life-threatening adverse events by predicting a patient’s risks.

 

Did You Know?

• About $350 billion is spent annually on ineffective medicine.1

• Two thirds of office visits to physicians result in prescription drug therapy.2

• The majority of prescription drugs only work in 30% to 50% of the people taking them.3

Pharmacogenomics can play an important role in identifying:

• Drug selection and clinical response
• Drug sensitivity and resistance due to altered drug metabolism
• Risks for adverse events
• Genotype-specific dosing
• Mechanisms of drug action
• Altered response due to variations in drug targets

References 1. http://ww2.gazette.net/stories/04092010/businew174343_32559.php. 2. www.ncpa.org/pdfs/bg165.pdf. 3. http://www.rejuvenation-science.com/n_drugs_performance.html.