La pharmacogénomique, c’est quoi au juste?
Sur le plan génétique, chaque individu est unique. Le matériel génétique dont il est constitué détermine la couleur de ses yeux, de ses cheveux, sa morphologie, certaines de ses maladies mais aussi la réponse de cet individu face aux traitements médicamenteux qui lui sont administrés.
In this interview, Bryn Williams-Jones comments on the hype surrounding pharmacogenomics: the financial opportunities and risks faced by the industry and governments, the promises to the patients and the issues of accessibility and ethics.
The pharmacogenomics promise essentially suggests that more targeted therapies will be delivered to patients, but rarely discusses if these promises are economically attractive based on the current market dynamics. The pharmacogenomics promises presented in literature suggest these benefits will be achieved either through an improvement in adverse events (by dose adjustments based on genetically determined rates of drug metabolism), or by a more targeted selection of patients (by identifying genetic profiles that show a higher success rate with particular therapies).
Pharmacogenetics – the relationship between an individual’s response to particular drugs and their genetic ‘make-up’ – promises to improve health care in a number of ways. However, many questions remain to be answered before the promised benefits are realised in routine clinical practice.
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