A Tale of Two Drugs Hints at Promise for Genetic Testing

The Perfidious NY Times ^ | July 11, 2006 | GINA KOLATA

[neverdem]

A decade or so ago, when the revolution in genetics was getting under way, the air was heady with promises.

Gene tests, scientists predicted, would become an integral part of drug prescribing. No longer would patients find out too late that a drug did not work for them. No longer would they have to wait to see if they had side effects to one drug before switching to another.

Tests of their genes would make all of this clear. But with the exception of a few tests for genes on certain cancer cells, the genetics revolution has not yet happened.

There are many reasons. But the stories of two drugs — one for heart failure, the other for breast cancer — illuminate some of the difficulties as well as the immense promise that is still to come.

Now maybe, just maybe, the promised revolution is imminent.

“We are sitting here on the edge of a very significant improvement” in drug therapy, said Dr. David Flockhart, a professor of medicine, genetics and pharmacology at Indiana University. “It involves no new drugs, no massive drug development program. It involves exploiting natural human variation to protect people from therapy when it will be useless.”

One story begins with a drug that was wholly abandoned: bucindolol, a once-promising treatment for heart failure.

Bucindolol, one in a class of drugs known as beta blockers, was tested in a large study sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

[neverdem]

Bob Kutys/International Registry of Pathology
IN CONTRAST A failed heart, left, and a normal one. Genetic tests might be used to identify patients who can be helped by certain drugs.

[GoodWithBarbarians JustForKaos]

I can't, won't, and don't go to the NYSlimes site. But, regardless... a lot of people want their fingers in the cookie jar. This greed could be what has delayed things and it probably will continue to do so.