What is the relevance to patients of Pharmacogenomics?
Pharmacogenomics aims to apply discoveries and methods arising from genomic studies to help in drug discovery and to improve the efficacy and safety of medicines. This new field has the potential to revolutionize how medicine is practiced in three major ways: a) by using results from genetics and proteomics to identify novel targets for drug development. b) improving biological prediction of response to drugs by understanding how genetic inheritance influences variability in response to drugs; it may thus become possible to select more effective medicines by genetic tailoring to individuals; c) by genetic profiling of pharmacokinetic and metabolic responses to medicines to reduce occurrence of unwanted effects of individual high risk drugs and predicting and so avoiding potentially harmful drug interactions. These benefits have great potential to improve treatment outcomes by improved drug targeting of disease, by reducing delays in achieving optimum outcome of treatment, and avoiding
