NEW YORK, Oct. 10 (GenomeWeb News) - Clinical reference lab Specialty Laboratories said today that it has signed an agreement to begin co-marketing Roche Diagnostics' AmpliChip CYP450 assay by the end of the month.
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The AmpliChip CYP450, which is built upon the Affymetrix microarray platform, analyzes the cytochrome P450 2D6 and 2C19 genotypes to help determine the appropriate dosages of medications for a variety of conditions, including pain medication, cardiac disease, cancer, and depression.
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David Weavil, CEO of Specialty Laboratories, said in a statement that the assay "can help determine whether a standard dose of a drug metabolized in a patient with a particular genotype would be appropriate, or whether it might cause significant or serious side effects, or even toxicity." The test can also "predict whether a standard dosing schedule of expensive medications would be cleared from a person's body so quickly that it does not achieve effective therapeutic levels," Weavil said.
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Specialty said that it also plans to launch a marketing campaign "to educate clients about the test's value."