News | Genetics

News

£1.8m-per-dose gene therapy approved for NHS use in Scotland

The single-dose treatment for spinal muscular atrophy could also become the most expensive drug to ever be approved by NICE for use in England and Wales.…

Published: 9 March 2021

News

Pharmacogenetic testing in community pharmacy could improve drug selection and cut adverse reactions, study finds

Researchers have estimated that an actionable drug–gene interaction was present for around 20% of all new prescriptions for 56 common medicines.…

Published: 22 January 2021

News

Personalised medicine approach could benefit people with asthma

Prescribing asthma treatment based on genetic differences could improve outcomes, results presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress have suggested.…

Published: 12 October 2020

Opinion

Why ‘epidrugs’ will be the next major focus for precision medicine

It is not just our genes that dictate how our bodies cope with disease and respond to drugs — by identifying the modifications to our DNA strands, and the histone proteins that regulate gene expression, we can uncover a whole new direction for diagnostic biomarkers, therapeutic biomarkers and …

Published: 9 September 2020

Feature

Going against type: the new class of cancer therapies targeting mutations rather than tissues

‘Tumour agnostic’ drugs offer a more effective and tolerable therapy for a wide range of people with cancer, so why has the NHS rejected its first one?…

Published: 19 March 2020

Feature

Everything you need to know about the NHS genomic medicine service

A closer look at the progress made so far on NHS England’s new national genomic medicine service.…

Published: 2 January 2020

News

NHS Scotland to provide £100,000-per-year cystic fibrosis drug

A five-year deal to supply NHS Scotland with cystic fibrosis drugs Orkambi and Symkevi has been secured after discussions between the manufacturer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and the Scottish government.…

Published: 13 September 2019

Opinion

Pharmacists must embrace pharmacogenetic services before other professions beat them to it

Multidisciplinary genetic testing services will help patients receive more targeted medicines, and pharmacists are the obvious healthcare professional to lead them.…

Published: 14 August 2019

News

Funding for Genomics England to reduce by £40m under 2019/2020 DHSC spending plans

The Department of Health and Social Care has put forward plans to reduce its funding to Genomics England by £40m in 2019/2020 as the body receives a new funding model to match its latest target to sequence five million genomes in five years.…

Published: 20 May 2019

News

Project to sequence 100,000 genomes from NHS patients hits target

The 100,000 Genomes Project has reached its goal to sequence 100,000 genomes from NHS patients by the end of 2018, Matt Hancock, health and social care secretary, has announced.…

Published: 5 December 2018