Stevens-Johnson syndrome
Pharmigene said last week that 50 hospitals in Taiwan will now administer its test for HLA-B*1502, which is a marker for increased risk of adverse events in Asian populations treated with the anti-seizure drug carbamazepine.
NEJM Studies Find New Carbamazepine Response Marker, Support Value of Genotyping in Han Chinese
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The US Food and Drug Administration in 2007 updated the label for carbamazepine to recommend that patients of Asian ancestry taking the drug be tested for the HLA-B*1502 marker. While one NEJM study published this week supports this practice, a second study suggests that the boxed warning be expanded to include a new allele for the European population.
Nine members of the HMO Research Network "will use detailed clinical profiles to search for potential subjects to enroll into … serious adverse events research projects using their electronic medical record databases," iSAEC said in a statement.
Pharmigene Licenses IP to Mayo Clinic for Companion Dx for Stevens-Johnson Syndrome
The Mayo Clinic will develop tests to detect for the presence of alleles that increase the risk for developing the potentially deadly skin disease if certain drugs are taken.
For the first year of the SAEC-HMORN collaboration, each HMO will sift through the clinical profile of its members in the network's database and identify potential participants for future gene-association studies.