News Release

NORTH MANCHESTER — Manchester University students and faculty in the pharmacogenomics, or PGx, program are taking an active role in maintaining a nationwide database that cross-references drug-gene interaction information in clinical guidelines with U.S. Food and Drug Administration data.

Its partner in the project, the Personalized Medicine Coalition, released the first quarterly listing of the database Wednesday, Aug. 31.

Going forward, this resource will be updated each quarter, and much of the work will be done by a Manchester team that includes students in the Master of Science in PGx degree program and the dual degree program that allows students to earn a doctoral degree in pharmacy and the PGx master’s degree. Pharmacogenomics studies the relationship between an individual’s genetics and their response to a medication and also allows physicians and other clinicians to prescribe drugs to maximize therapy early on and avoid or decrease the risk of adverse effects.

This listing will be a resource that puts in one place the latest scientific thinking in personalized medicine with other current information from the FDA’s Table of Pharmacogenetic Associations and those listed in widely-consulted clinical guidelines published by the Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium.

Because it will be updated every quarter, it will help researchers, genetic test developers and health care decision-makers keep up with the latest information and reduce the effect of sometimes-conflicting information in the fast-evolving area of personalized medicine.