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Biotech / Medical : AFFYMETRIX (AFFX) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tuck who wrote (1627)	6/25/2003 3:35:36 AM
From: nigel bates	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1728

Roche gene chip brings tailored medicine nearer Tuesday June 24, 11:58 pm ET By Ben Hirschler, European Pharmaceuticals Correspondent LONDON, June 25 (Reuters) - The era of personalised medicine came a step closer on Wednesday as Switzerland's Roche Holding AG (ROCZg.VX) launched the world's first "gene chip" for testing how individuals will react to drugs. Today's medicines are a hit-and-miss affair, with different people reacting differently to the same treatments, leading to adverse side effects or no effect at all in some cases. Roche, the world's largest diagnostics company, hopes to change that with its new Amplichip CYP450 test, which identifies small variations in two genes affecting drug response. Known as CYP2D6 and CYP2C19, they play a key role in determining how individuals metabolise commonly prescribed drugs, including treatments for depression, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and hyperactivity. The new test, which is being launched first in the United States, with Europe set to follow at the end of the year, marks the latest advance in the small but growing field of personalised medicine, or pharmacogenomics. Some 10 percent of Caucasians and 20 percent of Asian populations are poor metabolisers of drugs, while a smaller proportion of people are ultra-fast. Both groups are at risk if given standard doses, with poor metabolisers -- whose bodies retain medicines longer than normal -- likely to suffer significant adverse reactions and ultra-fast metabolisers in danger of not receiving enough drug. In the United States alone, serious adverse drug reactions cause an estimated 100,000 deaths a year, and Roche estimates 25 million people worldwide could benefit from pre-testing before they are given drugs. Sales of AmpliChip CYP450, which will initially cost $350-400 per test, are expected to reach $100 million by 2008. But Roche diagnostics head Heino von Prondzynski believes this is just the tip of the iceberg for a global gene chip market that could be worth $8-10 billion by 2015. The test was developed with technology licensed from U.S.-based Affymetrix Inc (NasdaqNM:AFFX - News) and is the first of six gene chips that Roche plans to launch by the end of 2004. A gene chip, or microarray, is a thumbnail-sized glass plate containing fragments of DNA that can be used to screen tens of thousands of individual DNA pieces for certain genes. LITIGATION FEARS Demand for pharmacogenomic tests will be driven in part by litigation fears, according to Von Prondzynski. "If a patient suffering from an adverse drug reaction learns he could have avoided it if his physician had done such a test because he is a poor metaboliser, this is something that will drive the use of the test," he told Reuters. Until now, many big pharmaceutical companies have taken a cautious approach to pharmacogenomics, using the technology in clinical trials, for example, but shying away from embracing the idea whole-heartedly for fear it could hit sales. The drugs industry has traditionally relied on a small number of multi-billion-dollar "blockbusters" to drive sales and profits. Pharmacogenomics threatens to explode that model if the drugs are in future tailored to small groups of patients. Roche, with a foot in both diagnostics and medicines, may have less to lose than its rivals, since Von Prondzynski believes diagnostics by 2020 could generate $1 in sales for every $2 spent on drugs.