I guess it’s inevitable that when you tell people that you’ve been writing about pharmacogenetics, they’ll want to know if you can tell them anything about the medications that they’re taking or that they’re thinking about taking.  Recently a friend asked me about a particular immune suppressive drug that had been recommended as a treatment for her multiple sclerosis.  My quick search of the literature didn’t find any immediately available tests, but it did find that lots of people were thinking about them.

The first Web site I found was that of a personal injury law firm that was recruiting clients who might have been harmed by an MS drug (not the one my friend was thinking of taking).  In the law firm’s statement was a comment that pharmaceutical companies were ignoring developments in pharmacogenetics.

Other sites discussed current research aimed at looking for pharmacogenetic, pharmacogenomic, and proteonomic aspects of MS.  Here are two studies discussed in the September 2005 issue of the Journal of Neurology:

“Two forthcoming studies will investigate the long-term effects of early treatment with interferon beta-1b (IFNβ) on the course of MS. The BENEFIT (BEtaseron®/Betaferon® in Newly Emerging MS for Initial Treatment) study will incorporate pharmacogenetic and pharmacogenomic analyses to determine the genetic elements controlling treatment response. BEST-PGx (Betaferon®/Betaseron® in Early relapsing-remitting MS Surveillance Trial—Pharmacogenomics) is an exploratory 2-year study that will investigate the value of RNA expression profiling and pharmacogenetics in predicting treatment response to IFNβ in patients with early relapsing MS. The main goal of BEST-PGx is the identification of differences in gene expression profiles of patients showing differential treatment responses. In addition, this study may reveal new information relevant to the mechanism of action of interferon treatment in MS and also to differences in the underlying pathology of the immune system.”

As an aside, I wonder where the practice of assigning cute acronyms to clinical trials actually started.  BENEFIT indeed.  I await their findings.

Technorati Tags: pharmacogenetics, multiple sclerosis, interferon

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