Register for New study: Pharmacogenomic tests have key applications in cancer and infectious disease
Infectious DiseaseAugust 8, 2002
2002 AUG 8 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- "Predictive Pharmacogenomics: Revolutionizing Health Care," published by Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI), examines developing technologies designed to use an individual's genomic profile to predict response to certain drugs, enabling better treatment decisions and safer medical care.
Pharmacogenomic tests are already being used to predict patient response to therapy in the fields of cancer and infectious disease; these two important applications are discussed in detail in this report.
The most notable example in the cancer arena is the testing of breast cancer patients for the presence of estrogen and progesterone receptors in their tumors to predict whether they are likely to respond to hormonal therapy. Breast cancer patients are also tested for overexpression of HER-2/neu before they are given Genentech's Herceptin (trastuzumab), since only those patients whose tumors overexpress HER-2/neu will respond to this therapy.
The fields of antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal therapy are faced with a different issue - the growing problem of microbial drug resistance, and the need to be able to predict which antimicrobial agents are likely to be effective in treating specific infections. Viral resistance is a major problem in treating HIV infection. Both types of HIV drug-resistance assays-genotyping assays and phenotyping assays-share certain limitations. However, several trials have demonstrated the potential clinical usefulness of HIV drug-resistance testing. The Viradapt and Genotypic Antiretroviral Resistance Testing (GART) studies compared the use of genotyping with standard care for guiding decisions about treatment regimens. In both of these studies, there was a significantly greater reduction in plasma HIV RNA in patients in the genotyping arm of the study compared with the controls. Such findings have opened up a new diagnostic market, and several companies have developed HIV drug-resistance tests. The problem of HIV drug resistance has also created a significant need for new anti-HIV therapies that function by novel mechanisms. If HIV drug resistance also becomes an issue with these new drugs, the testing field may continue to expand as diagnostics companies move to develop HIV- resistance assays that also detect changes in these novel targets.
For those companies offering tools or services in this arena, or trying to develop pharmacogenomic therapies and diagnostics, the CHI report outlines the many critical strategic issues that will affect success. The report also provides a map of competitors in these arenas, with financial data about them. This article was prepared by Women's Health Weekly editors from staff and other reports.
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