NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Drug store chain Kerr Drug and the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill plan to investigate the feasibility of implementing a pharmacogenomic program at the community pharmacy level directed at Plavix (clopidogrel).
Under the six-month study announced today, the partners will jointly develop a protocol, evaluate physician and patients opinions, and research reimbursement challenges and regulatory requirements to such a program.
"Because pharmacists have unique expertise in medication use and are point-of-care service providers, they can play an important role in facilitating pharmacogenetic testing and more personalized health care,” Rebecca Chater, executive vice president of Kerr Health, said in a statement. "This study will examine just how that role can be implemented."
Participants in the study will be screened at the pharmacy, with results interpreted and reviewed by the prescribing physician and the pharmacist.
In 2010, the US Food and Drug Administration put a black-box warning on the antiplatelet drug Plavix saying the drug may not be effective for patients with certain variants of the CYP2C19 gene. FDA recommended a patient undergo genetic testing before being put on the drug.