JIPMER on Monday became the first medical college in the country to announce plans pf offering personalised medicine ( pharmacogenomic drugs) for some category of drugs from September.
The proposal has been accepted in principle though a final approval in awaited, Dr C Adithan, Professor and Head, Department of Pharmacology, and Head of ICMR Centre for Advanced Research in Pharmacogenomics, JIPMER, told Express.
The user charges would have to be finalised for people living above the poverty line, which would be decided once the institute’s director Dr T S Ravikumar returned from leave.
Initially, it would be introduced in three category of drugs - oral coagulants, anti-convulsion drugs and anti-cancer therapy drugs. Anticoagulant drugs (to make blood thinner) are used in cardio-vascular surgery and arrhythmia, while anti-convulsion drugs are anti-epileptic drugs.
Both TPMT testing drugs and Tamoxifen therapy drugs are used in anti-cancer therapy.
The adverse effects of the drugs could be prevented by prescribing them as per the genetic make up of a patient, said Dr Adithan.
JIPMER also added a state-of-the-art equipment, Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectra(LCMSMS), at a cost of `1.50 crore, to measure the drug level.
This equipment installed in July is being used for monitoring the level of drug in the body, he told Express. It is highly useful in monitoring the level of immuno-suppressive drugs given to renal transplant patients.
Till now, JIPMER had been sending samples to Chennai for testing with each test costing `3,000 to `4,000 and results being obtained after a wait. The tests would now be done in JIPMER itself, he said.