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Updated: May 23, 2026

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Published on: June 21, 2018
The need for translational research on drug-drug interactions
1Center for Clinical Epidemiology, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. hennessy@upenn.edu
Abstract:
Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) are an important clinical and public health concern. Although DDI screening now occurs during drug development, it is difficult to predict clinical importance based on in vitro experiments. Furthermore, older drugs that were not screened may have interactions that have not yet been identified. In this Commentary, we review the importance of DDIs and argue that a translational research approach is needed to produce clinically actionable information as well as generalizable biological knowledge.
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