Global Pharmacogenomics Within Precision Medicine: Challenges and Opportunities

Despite the established role of pharmacogenomic variation in drug efficacy and safety, prompting the creation of treatment guidelines by the Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium (CPIC) and Dutch Pharmacogenetics Working Group (DPWG), the application of this information into routine clinical care remains limited. In this commentary, we identify and attempt to address 10 challenges (Table 1, Figure S1 (PowerPoint version)) that impede the widespread availability of genomics-guided precision medicine. CHALLENGE 1: THERE IS NO GLOBAL NETWORK OF EXPERTS TO HELP DRIVE BASIC PHARMACOGENOMICS RESEARCH AND CLINICAL IMPLEMENTATION The creation of a unified network comprised of researchers, clinicians, patients, and professionals from academia, government, and industry would increase the visibility and relevance of pharmacogenomics within the genomics and implementation science communities. The network could create data quality and implementation standards, which would improve adoption. Network members would have access to existing and new consortia and data sets and could attend regular meetings. To fund network activities (including the ongoing curation of pharmacogenomic information), sponsorship or partnership with industry, national guideline organizations, regulatory bodies, and/or scientific societies that foster global initiatives while ensuring arms-length involvement could be considered. While several networks exist that focus on pharmacogenomics, each has its own mission, meetings, and membership, usually within a single country (e.g., Pharmacogenomics Research Network (PGRN), UK Pharmacogenomics and Stratified Medicine Network, and Global Genomic Medicine Collaborative (G2MC)).