Posted by Stephanie on November 17, 1999 at 07:47:33:
Reuters Health Information
NEW YORK -- Customized drugs that are tailored for each individual patient may be just around the corner, according to a report in the journal Science.
Currently, pharmaceutical companies make drugs that are one-size-fits-all, but "science and technology will soon make it feasible" to make drugs that "are optimal for individual patients," the authors suggest.
This will lead to more effective drugs with less toxicity, say the authors, Dr. William E. Evans of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and Dr. Mary V. Relling of the University of Tennessee, both in Memphis.
One of the problems with making drugs that work for everybody is that many people respond to drugs differently. Minor variations in genes among individuals can result in "profound" toxicity and reduced effectiveness for certain medications, Evans and Relling explain.
Pharmacogenetics, the field of making drugs based on an individual's precise genetic make-up, is being rapidly advanced by increasing knowledge of both the human body and disease, the authors note.
The Human Genome Project -- which seeks to decipher the role of every gene in the human body -- coupled with new technology that allows scientists to gain an increased understanding of how drugs work, play significant roles in this field.
By using this knowledge to identify people who might be susceptible to a lessened effect or toxicity of a drug, scientists can modify or customize the drug to those patients, which will result in more effective, less toxic drugs, Evans and Relling conclude.
SOURCE: Science 1999;286:487-491.