Pharmacogenetics and how patients respond to drugs
Pharmacogenetics is the study of how genetic differences affect a person’s response to medicine. Pharmacogenetics is often used interchangeably with pharmacogenomics. Pharmacogenetic research and testing determine a person’s ability to metabolize medicines and understand how they will affect the person. This helps doctors and providers choose the most effective medications and doses for a patient.
The advantages of pharmacogenetics testing are that it provides patients with personalized treatments most suited for them, allowing providers to find effective drugs and treatments quicker, and it reduces the chances of a patient having a negative or adverse reaction to a drug. Personalized medicine has become very important in the recent years. One of the biggest fields of medicine to adopt this new approach to patient care is Oncology. Instead of prescribing a list of anti-tumor drugs, providers can use a patient’s genetic makeup to narrow down exactly which therapeutics will be most effective. Personalized medicine is, and will be, a great tool for a provider to achieve the best patient care while decreasing adverse side effects.
The effectiveness of most medications is determined by drug-metabolizing enzymes in the body. All enzymes are produced by certain genes. Different gene variations in a person change the amount of enzyme the liver produces which changes the body’s ability to metabolize medicines. These variations can make a drug toxic in one person, and barely effective in another.
Contract Laboratory has helped facilitate pharmacogenetic testing for the following test requests:
- Large pharma needs a pharmacogenetics laboratory for 32 P post-labeling DNA adduct assay
- Pharmacy certified in pharmacogenetics needs a genetics laboratory for their pharmacogenetic testing from swabs.
- Contract Research Organization needed for Pharmacogenetics and DME genotyping for CYP450 2D6 – 2C9 – 2C19 genotyping. 100 samples/month
- To view these and all our other test requests, click here.
If your organization or company needs a laboratory to perform pharmacogenetics testing or research, let us help you! Call us at 10855037706821, or submit a pharmacogenetics online test request.
