Conference report: pharmacogenomics in special populations at WCP2018

Implementation and obstacles of pharmacogenetics in clinical practice: An international survey

AIMS

Eight years ago, a paper-based survey was administered during the World Pharma 2010 meeting, asking about the challenges of implementing pharmacogenetics (PGx) in clinical practice. The data collected at the time gave an idea about the progress of this implementation and what still needs to be done. Since then, although there have been major initiatives to push PGx forward, PGx clinical implementation may still be facing different challenges in different parts of the world. Our aim was therefore to distribute a follow-up international survey in electronic format to elucidate an overview on the current stage of implementation, acceptance and challenges of PGx in academic institutions around the world.

METHODS

This is an online anonymous LimeSurvey-based study launched on 11 November 2018. Survey questions were adapted from the initially published manuscript in 2010. An extensive web search for worldwide scientists potentially involved in PGx research resulted in a total of 1973 names. Countries were grouped based on the Human Development Index.

RESULTS

There were 204 respondents from 43 countries. Despite the wide availability of PGx tests, the consistently positive attitude towards their applications and advances in the field, progress of the clinical implementation of PGx still faces many challenges all around the globe.

CONCLUSIONS

Clinical implementation of PGx started over a decade ago but there is a gap in progress around the globe and discrepancies between the challenges reported by different countries, despite some challenges being universal. Further studies on ways to overcome these challenges are warranted.

Conference report: pharmacogenomics in special populations at WCP2018

The 18th World Congress of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (WCP2018), coordinated by IUPHAR and hosted by the Japanese Pharmacological Society and the Japanese Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, was held in July 2018 at the Kyoto International Conference Center, in Kyoto, Japan. Having as its main theme 'Pharmacology for the Future: Science, Drug Development and Therapeutics', WCP2018 was attended by over 4500 delegates, representing 78 countries. The present report is an overview of a symposium at WCP2018, entitled Pharmacogenomics in Special Populations, organized by IUPHAR´s Pharmacogenetics/Genomics (PGx) section. The PGx section congregates distinguished scientists from different continents, covering expertise from basic research, to clinical implementation and ethical aspects of PGx, and one of its major activities is the coordination of symposia and workshops to foster exchange of PGx knowledge (https://iuphar.org/sections-subcoms/pharmacogenetics-genomics/). The symposium attracted a large audience to listen to presentations covering various areas of research and clinical adoption of PGx in Oceania, Africa, Latin America and Asia.