Determining the clinical utility of pharmacogenomics (PGx) at a population level was a key driver for the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) and Thermo Fisher Scientific to collaborate in the development and launch of a PGx Center of Excellence in School of Pharmacy.1 The collaboration paired the expansive Pitt/University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s (UPMC) health system, the largest academic health system in the U.S.,1 with Thermo Fisher’s comprehensive genetic testing solutions and implementation services.
“In a Partnership with Thermo Fisher, which [is] certainly a leading innovator in developing testing solutions, we brought this new center of excellence to Pittsburgh with the goal of doing pre-emptive panel-based testing in >150,000 patients and be able to return these results to researchers and clinicians.”
In this enlightening session, Dr. Philip Empey recounts the story of the PGx Center of Excellence, from concept to collaboration. Dr. Empey shares the teams’ initial goals and strategies to establish the population-scale testing program and the ongoing measures at UPMC to deliver superior, cost-effective patient care and to advance understanding of genetic variation effects on medication response.
The project brought together health system stakeholders to develop best practices in testing, clinical implementation, clinical decision support, education and research. Core elements of the PGx Center of Excellence initiative include the need to:
- identify and validate predictors for a patient’s medication response,
- determine the value of using PGx testing and medication prescribing guidance, and
- identify program implementation barriers and mitigation strategies.
From this body of work, the team is testing approximately 4,600 markers and nearly 1,200 genes. They will establish return of results processes for 14 gene targets where there is clinical actionability necessitating:
- clinical-grade testing and genotype interpretation,
- drug therapy modification, and
- electronic medical record reporting and clinical decision support.
This initiative builds off the Pitt/UPMC’s PreCISE-Rx program, which has demonstrated clinical utility and economic value for PGx testing in routine clinical practice. If you’re considering the implementation of PGx within your health system, this program will provide valuable insights to cross-functional teams.
Interested in pharmacogenomics research? Contact us to discuss your requirements and make it easy for you to pick the right technology.
Philip Empey, PharmD, PhD, is the Director of the Pharmacogenomics Center of Excellence and Associate Director of the Institute for Precision Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Empey leads the PreCISE-Rx and Test2Learn teams to implement pharmacogenomics clinical, research and educational initiatives. As a clinician-scientist in the Department of Pharmacy and Therapeutics of the School of Pharmacy, Dr. Empey conducts NIH-funded clinical and translational research aimed at understanding the mechanisms of the variability in drug response to improve medication-related outcomes in critically ill patients. His research interests include large scale population preemptive testing and pharmacogenomics clinical implementation, among others.
1Pitt and Thermo Fisher Scientific Establish Pharmacogenomics Center of Excellence. 2018. http://www.news.pitt.edu/news/pitt-and-thermo-fisher-scientific-establish-pharmacogenomics-center-excellence
Additional Resources:
The Institute for Precision Medicine (IPM)
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