Major pharmaceutical companies, regulators and academics have joined in an effort to study the genetics of patients who develop serious side effects from prescription drugs. The hope is to develop information that will help doctors determine which people are at risk of serious side effects before prescribing a drug.
Another possibility is that by determining those that would be adversely affected drug companies could still market new drugs that would otherwise be unapproved do to the potential side effects that occur only in a small number of people.
"My hope is we can dramatically influence the safe use of drugs in the clinic but also in development," Arthur Holden, chairman and chief executive of the new group, said in an interview.
The Consortium is a nonprofit endeavor that is funded by seven large pharmaceutical companies. The exact amount of the funding was not released. The drug makers who have already joined include Johnson & Johnson(NYSE:JNJ), Wyeth (NYSE:WYE), Sanofi-Aventis (EPA:SAN), Abbot Laboratories (NYSE:ABT), Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE), GlaxoSmithKline PLC (LON:GSK), and Roche Holding AG (PINK:RHHVF). Others are expected to follow suit.
Research will begin on drug-induced liver problems and a rare skin reaction called Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
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