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Tag Archives: Personalized Medicine

Genome BC and PROOF Launch Phase Two of Biomarkers in Transplantation

Genome British Columbia and the Prevention of Organ Failure (PROOF) Centre of Excellence at UBC announced the launch of the second phase of the “Biomarkers in Transplantation” project, which aims to use a simple blood test to identify patients who are rejecting a transplanted organ. The current test for rejection is a biopsy — which costs somewhere between [...]

Trends Update — Personalized Medicine: No Medicare Funding for Warfarin Testing, For Now

The WSJ Health Blog reports that Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has decided there is not enough scientific evidence for Medicare to pay for genetic testing to customize Warfarin dosing. CMS proposes paying for more research, and the New York Times story questions the cost effectiveness of a prospective study; but as we [...]

Trends Update — Personalized Medicine: Clinical Data on Personalized Cancer Treatment

A study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting this week showed benefits to patients from using molecular profiling to customize chemotherapy regimens. The pilot study, with Daniel Von Hoff, M.D. as the senior investigator, used immunohistochemistry and microarray profiling to select treatment regimens for 66 patients who had ovarian, colorectal, breast and other cancers.   [...]

Wednesday Brain Dump: Two of Everything! Edition

Two Camels!  Dolly the cloned sheep, meet Injaz the cloned camel. Two R&D Heads!  The combined Pfizer-Wyeth will have Mikael Dolsten heading up the newly created BioTherapeutics Research Group and Martin Mackay heading up the small molecule PharmaTherapeutics Research Group.  (Two CapitalLetters!)  The In Vivo Blog has a podcast interviewing both. Two VA Initiatives!  In addition to the electronic [...]

Friday Science Review: Good News, Bad News Edition

Good news: If you happen to be in Montréal on Monday, you should check out the opening of the  Centre de pharmacogénomique Beaulieu-Saucier de l’Université de Montréal (that’s the Beaulieu-Saucier Centre for Pharmacogenomics at the University of Montréal, y’all).  It will be great to see what comes out of this centre for Canadian personalized medicine. [...]

Trends in 2009: Comparative Effectiveness Meets Personalized Medicine in the Senate

Yesterday Senator Kyl (R-AZ) introduced a “comparative effectiveness amendment” (SA 793) to the budget which would have: required that legislation resulting from the health care reserve fund not use data obtained from comparative effectiveness research to deny coverage under Federal health care programs; and ensured that comparative effectiveness research accounts for advancements in genomics and personalized [...]

Trends in 2009: Personalized Medicine and Cancer Update

The Boston Globe reported this week on current trends in genetic testing of tumors: Massachusetts General Hospital will be adding $2,000 per patient worth of genetic testing as part of its standard of care for cancer. Dana-Farber tests selected patients, including patients with certain melanomas, where doctors know those malignancies can carry abnormalities that are susceptible [...]

Allocating Spending to Support R&D: UK, U.S. and Canadian Approaches

The U.S., Canada and the UK have all acknowledged the central importance of R&D even in these recessionary times.  However, the three national governments have decided to focus their spending on different steps of the R&D equation: Education: UK Takes the Long View British PM Gordon Brown, in a speech this week, identified three priorities: research, education and training, [...]

Warfarin and Personalized Medicine

The optimal dose of Warfarin for an individual can vary across a 10-fold range, and depends in part on genetic variation in two genes, CYP2C9 and VKORC1.  In 2007, the FDA required a labelling change to warn of patients with increased risk of bleeding due to these variations.  However, population-wide assessments of outcomes based on genetic [...]

Personalized Medicine: The “SNP Doctor”

BIO SmartBrief picked up a story today about a device being tested called the mohel Snip Doctor, a hand-held diagnostic device that: looks for known single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) – single letter changes in the genetic code – that can affect an individual’s response to medical treatment. While most current approaches to personalized medicine are mechanistic (e.g., [...]

Comparative Effectiveness Stimulus Stimulates Reactions

The $1.1 billion in the stimulus bill for comparative effectiveness research has, not surprisingly, generated a good deal of public attention.  Friday’s Washington Post and the front page of today’s New York Times both have stories covering the political jockeying. Although both pieces focus on potential problems from the lack of individualization, either from libertarian or [...]

Personalized Medicine: First SAEC Data

The FDA (as part of the Critical Path Initiative) and the International Serious Adverse Event Consortium (SAEC) announced the release of their first data on the genetic basis of adverse drug reactions today.

Personalized Medicine: Local to Global

Two local developments in personalized medicine in Canada, one at the forefront of global efforts, one making recommendations on how to play catch-up:

Friday Science Review: January 23, 2009

Interesting science developments in and from Canada this week:

Trends in 2009: Comparative Effectiveness and Personalized Medicine

Two potentially conflicting trends may see a dramatically increased profile in 2009: Government Bailouts and Free-Market Capitalism Comparative Effectiveness and Personalized Medicine. Both have been highlighted by the incoming Obama administration. 

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