FDA tests 'personalized medicine'

WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 (UPI) -- Medco Health Solutions is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine how a patient's genes determine reactions to medicine.

A pharmacy benefits manager, Medco, will provide information for two years on pharmacogenomics, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Much of the information is available in Medco patient databases.

The goal of the project is to test the usefulness of "personalized medicine."

"We're all about making this field happen as fast as it appropriately should happen," Dr. Robert Epstein, Medco's chief medical officer, told the Journal.

More than 20 tests are now available to determine whether a patient is compatible with a certain medication, Epstein said.

The FDA will not receive information from the Medco database that could be used to identify a specific patient, a company spokeswoman said.