My excitement about the subject we are addressing here continues without abatement, and the more I dig into it, the more I realize the huge impact it is going to have in our insurance industry as the move towards “customized” medical and remedial therapies becomes more in demand.
To give you more of the background, “Pharmacogenetics” is the study of inherited genetic difference in drug metabolic pathways which can affect individual responses to drugs, both in terms of therapeutic effect as well as adverse effects.
The term pharmacogenetics is often used interchangeably with the term pharmacogenomics which also investigates the role of acquired and inherited genetic difference in relation to drug response and drug behavior through a systematic examination of genes, gene products, and inter- and intra-individual variation in gene expression and function.
Much of current clinical interest at the level of pharmacogenetics, involving variation in genes involved in drug metabolism with a particular emphasis on improving drug safety. The wider use of pharmacogenetics testing is viewed by many as an outstanding opportunity to improve prescribing safety and efficacy. Driving this trend are the multitude of deaths and serious events caused by adverse drug reactions (ADR) in each year. As such ADRs are responsible for 5-7% of hospital admissions, lead to the withdrawal of 4% of new medicines, and cost society an amount equal to the costs of drug treatment. Scientists and doctors are using this new technology for a variety of things, one being improving the efficacy of drugs.
Let’s see what Dr. Ruslan Dorfman from GeneYouIn says when we come to Part II next week.
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