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Incorporating Pharmacogenomics into Practice
If pharmacogenomics can be successfully integrated into medical practice it has potential to bring about more powerful medicines, better and safer drugs the first time, more accurate methods to determine appropriate drug dosages, advanced screening for disease, better vaccines, improvements in the discovery and approval process and decrease in overall health care costs. Since the completion of the human genome project (HGP) in 2003, there are now over 100 FDA-approved medications whose labeling contains information about pharmacogenomics. These drugs recommend testing for specific genetic polymorphisms prior to treatment. Because of recent advances in pharmacogenomics and genetic testing methods, physicians and pharmacists need to have a general knowledge of basic genomic methods. A major barrier to implementing pharmacogenomics in everyday medical practice is the lack of educated health care providers who can accurately interpret and implement this new information.