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Pharmacists, GPs and nurse prescribers have access to a free, searchable online resource to help them tailor medicines to patients’ genetic profiles at the point of care, following the launch of the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association (UKCPA) ‘Handbook of pharmacogenomics’.
The UKCPA has said the handbook — which has been endorsed by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and British Pharmacological Society — is aimed to “support the use of pharmacogenetic results to optimise medicines by providing healthcare professionals with evidence-based advice and guidance in a simple and easy to use format”.
Jude Hayward, principal clinician in primary care at Genomics England, said the “really exciting resource … speaks to our need in primary care for concise and clear resources all in one place”.
“It also speaks to all prescribers, not solely pharmacists and medics, but all prescribers in primary care at all levels of competence,” she added.
Although there is currently no framework for the adoption of the handbook by the pharmacy workforce in primary and secondary care settings in their day-to-day clinical operations, guide co-developer Lucy Galloway, consultant pharmacist genomic medicine and pharmacy lead at NHS South East Genomic Medicine Service, said: “Pharmacogenomic testing is not particularly widely available in the NHS at the moment so a lot of this is about putting the groundwork in, to be prepared and to be ready for when it is.
“So, whilst the handbook may not be used on a day-to-day basis at this point in time, as pharmacogenomic testing becomes routine practice over the next decade or so, we very much hope that it will be adopted as a routine part of healthcare align with any clinical decision support tools that get developed,” she added.
A statement on the UKCPA website says: “All information provided within the handbook has been compiled from a range of sources and written by pharmacist members of the UKCPA with expertise in pharmacogenomics.
“All the content of the handbook is under a schedule of regular review. The frequency of review is between one and five years, depending on the medication, in order to allow for more contentious or complex medications to be reviewed more regularly.
“If new guidelines, position statements, or evidence prompts an earlier review, this is highlighted in a banner at the top of the page,” it adds.
However, the UKCPA advises that the handbook “is not intended to offer definitive therapeutic recommendations on how drugs should be used based on pharmacogenetic results”, nor is it “a comprehensive or exhaustive list of drugs which may be affected by pharmacogenetic variation.”
