The Genetics of Adverse Drug Reactions: Promises and Problems

There is increasing pressure from patients, health care providers, regulatory authorities, and pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders to bring safer drugs to the market. Despite highly regulated preclinical screening and clinical monitoring, drugs do still make it onto the market that have potentially serious safety issues. The reasons why only a small minority of exposed patients experience these adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are uncertain, but there is increasing interest in the study of genetics as one of the potential susceptibility factors. The following chapter reviews the major advances in this area, discusses how genetics can be used in understanding and mitigating ADR risk, highlights the major challenges associated with performing research in this area, and looks at some of the potential solutions.