Mayo Clinic Life Sciences System

David Snow, Mayo Amasses Mounds of Data, Wired, December 22 2003.

"The database, called the Mayo Clinic Life Sciences System … groups 4.4 million patients according to factors they have in common and includes both historical data and comprehensive information on Mayo Clinic patients dating back to 1997…Health-care professionals look forward to the eventual addition of patients’ genetic information to databases like the MCLSS — a field known as clinical genomics — as a major advance in medicine. Among other things, such access would allow doctors to divine with great speed and accuracy what drugs have worked best on a certain type of person with a certain illness…Mayo Clinic database developers said they have no timeline for the inclusion of genetic data, but expect it will happen in the next two to five years."

The database is a collaboration between the Mayo Clinic and IBM Life Sciences, which earlier this year announced a collaboration with UCSF.  Read my post here.

January 8, 2004 | Filed Under electronic-health-records, genomic-data, pharmacogenomics-pharmacogenetics-pgx | Comments Off 

Omics in the Foreseeable Future

Nebert DW, Jorge-Nebert L, Vesell ES. Pharmacogenomics and "Individualized Drug Therapy": high expectations and disappointing achievements. Am J Pharmacogenomics. 3(6):361-70. (only abstract available for free)

Genomics is an important tool in basic research; yet, it is unrealistic to include genotyping within the realm of tests available to the practicing clinician in the foreseeable future. The same can be said for transcriptomics and proteomics…The newly emerging fields of metabonomics and phenomics might offer solutions to anticipating and decreasing individual risk for adverse drug reactions in each individual patient; however, tests based on these approaches are not expected to become available to the practicing clinician for at least the next 5-10 years.

December 22, 2003 | Filed Under pharmacogenomics-pharmacogenetics-pgx | Comments Off 

Drug Efficacy: Trial by Error

Drug efficacy rate in per cent

Alzheimer’s: 30
Analgesics (Cox-2): 80
Asthma: 60
Cardiac Arrythmias: 60
Depression (SSRI): 62
Diabetes: 57
Hepatits C (HCV): 47
Incontinence: 40
Migraine (acute): 52
Migraine (prophylaxis): 50
Oncology: 25
Rheumatoid arthritis: 50
Schizophrenia: 60

Dr. Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline, recently commented about the dreadful state of affairs for patients taking prescription medications.  Namely, drugs are frequently ineffective for huge swaths of the population.  "The vast majority of drugs - more than 90 per cent - only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people," Dr Roses said. "I wouldn’t say that most drugs don’t work. I would say that most drugs work in 30 to 50 per cent of people. Drugs out there on the market work, but they don’t work in everybody."  He went on to say that "pharmacogenetics has the promise of removing much of the uncertainty."

As noted by Brooke at COSMAS, this is hardly a "shocking revelation."  Roses statements are not confessions as the Independent would have it seem:

Anonymous. Multinational drug company: honest, decent, public-spirited? The Independent (UK), December 8, 2003. (Subscribers only, but see here)

Steve Connor, Glaxo chief: Our drugs do not work on most patients, The Independent (UK), December 8, 2003.

While a geneticist at Duke, Dr. Allen Roses played a critical role in the identification of Apolipoprotein E as an Alzheimer’s susceptibility gene.  He has written many papers related to the post-genomic era, many of which can be found online for free (scroll to bottom).

UPDATE: Also see Derek Lowe’s The British Press vs. GSK

 

December 9, 2003 | Filed Under pharmacogenomics-pharmacogenetics-pgx | Comments Off 

The New, New Pharmacogenomics

Malorye Branca, The New, New Pharmacogenomics. Bio-IT World.  Part 1 of 2.

November 12, 2003 | Filed Under pharmacogenomics-pharmacogenetics-pgx | Comments Off 

Genomic Medicine

This week’s Science has a special feature on genomic medicine (for subscribers only).

Eliot Marshall’s article "First Check My Genome, Doctor" briefly discusses trends related to the development of DNA diagnostics.  A person’s genetic allotment may help doctors determine the effectiveness of drugs, including the severity of side effects. 

For example, recent evidence indicates that DNA diagnostics may be useful for predicting whether patients will respond favorably to anti-depressants.

A handful of companies are in the process of developing such diagnostics.  The article mentions several:   

Roche Molecular Diagnostics
AmpliChip CYP450
(press release)

Seryx
Signature Genetics
(web)

Genaissance Pharmaceuticals
(web)

Gentris
(web)

 

October 24, 2003 | Filed Under pharmacogenomics-pharmacogenetics-pgx | Comments Off 

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