I wanted to share a quote from Dr. Julie Johnson, PharmD, Dean and Distinguished Professor of Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, University of Florida and honoree at PMWC 2021 Pittsburgh:

“At present, pharmacogenomics is among the most actionable elements of Precision Medicine – when optimizing therapy, we are not doing that great a job with respect to taking an empirical approach.”

Pharmacogenomics (PGx) contributes greatly to Precision Medicine as a whole, providing to each individual patient to the unique drug intervention most beneficial to his or her unique biology. As such, the field has witnessed PGx advance from the testing of a single gene in response to an adverse event to the proactive testing of multiple genes, resulting in improved treatment outcomes, reduced adverse events, and a sharp decrease in unnecessary costs to healthcare systems.

The progress in PGx is tangible. In recent years we have observed an increase in the number of clinical studies implementing PGx approaches and techniques, and these efforts have, taken together, begun to provide a wealth of knowledge when it comes to overcoming the obstacles of preemptive PGx implementation. Speaking concretely, the benefits that preemptive PGx testing affords researchers and clinicians has now been demonstrated for a wide range of health problems, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, mental health disorders, and infectious diseases.

“Truly preemptive PGx testing in some ways makes a lot of sense, because then you overcome that barrier of not having it in front of the clinician when they’re in need of making a decision.”

Dr. Philip Empey, PMWC 2021 Pittsburgh Pharmacogenomics Session Chair, Associate Director of the Institute for Precision Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, and Associate Professor in the School of Pharmacy, UPMC.

While PGx is commonly used to test drug response variability, the preemptive translation of PGx discoveries remains a challenge and PGx-guided therapy faces many barriers to full integration into clinical practice and acceptance by stakeholders, be it the practitioner, payor, or patient. But, efforts are accelerating due to the falling costs of genomic testing, standardization in the field, and evolving partnerships that conduct large pragmatic clinical trials that demonstrate value in a real world setting.

PMWC 2021 Pittsburgh September 23-24, 2021 has a dedicated session on the topic of Pharmacogenomics, titled Advancing Pharmacogenomics.

Talks include:
• Julie Johnson – PMWC 2021 Pittsburgh Awardee, Dean and Distinguished Professor of Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, University of Florida.
Topic: Advancements in PGx
• Philip Empey – Session Chair, Associate Director of the Institute for Precision Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC and an Associate Professor in the School of Pharmacy
Topic: Population-scale Preemptive testing in Pittsburgh
• Teri Klein – Professor of Biomedical Data Science and Medicine, Stanford University
Topic: PGx evidence curation and dissemination through informatics
• Scott Megill – President & CEO of Coriell Life Sciences.
Topic: The Kentucky Teachers Union/Coriell partnership
• Scott Topper – Vice President of Clinical Operations, Color
Topic: Strategies for return of participant PGx test reports in “All of Us”

Please join us for this most relevant and timely in-person scientific conference, where we will discuss the critical topic of Pharmacogenomics and strive to identify solutions that will continue to improve patient care.

Take advantage of a discounted registration rate by the August 5th Deadline!

Yours truly,
Tal Behar
President, PMWCintl.com
650-961-8877

Want to learn even more about PGx? Consider arriving in Pittsburgh a day early (Sept 22) for a pre-meeting conference put together by University of Pittsburgh. The “Achieving population-scale pharmacogenomics” conference on Sept 22nd will feature experts and topics in pharmacogenomics — including new pre-emptive testing programs, innovative strategies to overcome barriers in achieving PGx implementation, and advances in payer reimbursement. See https://pgx.pitt.edu/conference/ for details and registration.