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Replace the “R” with a “T” and We’ve Got “Genetic” Drugs. Really?

March 02, 2010 By: Tylar Masters Category: Prescription News

Genetic testing could be the answer to lowering adverse side effects and ineffective prescriptions from doctor to patient.

You can get a personalized license plate. You can buy a personalized birthday card. You can even buy a personalized fortune cookie. And soon you could be buying a personalized prescription?

It happens a lot, a doctor prescribes a medication to a patient, and it simply doesn’t work. Then it’s back to the doctor, another prescription, in what feels like a “trial and error” situation. This could all soon be a thing of the past.

Genetic testing can determine a person’s reaction to a particular prescription medication. How some drugs cause adverse side effects in one group of people, and work wonders in other people, is strictly a matter of a gene group difference found between the two groups of people. Imagine if doctors knew before writing a prescription exactly how the medication would affect the patient. Problem gone!

Individualized treatment of prescription medication sounds complicated. However, the big drug companies support this theory that personalized medications would cut costs and ineffective prescriptions dispensing. What are your thoughts? If a simple genetic test would clarify which prescriptions will work best for you, would you take the test?


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