Pharmacogenomics research: a potential strategy for drug development

Adverse drug reactions (ADR) and drug ineffectiveness are the common in clinical practice. Recent studies have indicated their strong connection to the genetic feature of patients. To further illustrate this relationship, the discipline of Pharmacogenomics (PGx) was born. At present, in vitro cell models and in vivo transgenic animal models have a large potential to study the influence of human genetic mutations on drug response. Moreover, PGx guided clinical trials also provide benefits to drug development. With the drug targets introduced by PGx, great success has been achieved in targeted therapy (eg. gefitinib, cetuximab and ado-trastuzumab). Although the progress on PGx research is fascinating, the translation of PGx into drug development is unsatisfactory. To improve this situation, a rounded system that includes individuals, medical staff, academics associations, Government and Pharmaceutics-Biotechnology Industry should be established, as well as a connected pipeline consisting of policy guidance, PGx research, genotyping technology, preclinical and clinical studies.