Clinical implementation of PGx discussed in JAMA article

A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) discusses the current state of pharmacogenetic (PGx) implementation in the clinic. The article notes that clinical uptake of pharmacogenetics has been slow, despite data from the American Medical Association showing that 98% of the more than 10,000 physicians surveyed agree that drug responses may be influenced by genetic variations. This may be due to a lack of implementation guidance and clinical outcome data. Dr. Mary Relling, co-chair of the Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium (CPIC) and chair of the pharmaceutical sciences department at St Jude Children's Research Hospital, is interviewed, and discusses the lack of guidance on FDA labels that contain PGx information, which PharmGKB has previously blogged about. The article also provides an overview of CPIC and its role in providing implementation guidance to clinicians. Dr. Julie Johnson, dean and distinguished professor at the College of Pharmacy at the University of Florida, is interviewed about her Implementing Genomics in Practice (IGNITE) network project, which tracks pharmacogenetic implementation metrics and clinical outcomes, among other areas of research. The article also includes a discussion with Dr. Muin J. Khoury, director of the Office of Public Health Genomics (OPHG) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on the need for more clinical utility and outcome data for PGx gene-drug pairs. Background on the field of pharmacogenetics is provided, as well as interviews with multiple other leaders in the PGx space, including Dr. Peter H. O'Donnell, associate director for clinical implementation at the University of Chicago's Center for Personalized Therapeutics.