Medco and Mayo to study personalized medicine

Medco Health Solutions and fellow USA-based Mayo Collaborative Services have announced a strategic collaboration to jointly evaluate the medical, clinical and cost-savings potential of genetic testing, while improving patient safety and care. A comprehensive, community-based analysis of patients using warfarin is intended to be the first in a series of personalized medicine collaborations between Medco and Mayo Clinic.

Medco and Mayo will evaluate the genetic test results from more than 1,000 patients taking warfarin, a widely-used blood thinner initially marketed as Coumadin. Eligible subjects will be invited to participate from the more than 200,000 patients who are annually identified as new to warfarin therapy in Medco's prescription drug database.

Each year, around two million people in the USA begin therapy with warfarin to prevent blood clots. Genetic testing can provide valuable information about the rate at which patients will metabolize the drug, helping physicians prescribe the most appropriate dose of the medication for a particular patient. In routine practice, reaching the proper dose amounted to trial and error.