Does PGx Make Money?
The study authors acknowledge that the ability of pharmacogenomic strategies to detect sub-populations of patients most likely to respond to a drug and not experience side effects may cut into drug industry profits. “One negative implication of [pharmacogenomics for] manufacturers is that sales may be lower, as some members of the patient population are excluded, thereby lowering the chances of launching a traditional ‘blockbuster’ drug that sweeps over a patient population,” Cook and his colleagues write in the paper. According to their analysis, the revenues from a drug marketed with a genetic marker “can be shown to be no greater than those in the absence of a marker.” When a genetic marker is available for a drug, manufacturers may be able to avoid a hit to their revenues by marketing the drug to the general population but charging a premium to a sub-population that receives some incremental benefit in relation to the rest of the patient population, the authors proposed. “If there
