NEW YORK – US lawmakers on Friday introduced a bill to encourage the use of pharmacogenomics and reduce adverse drug reactions related to drug-gene interactions.
Representatives Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, introduced the bipartisan bill, dubbed the Right Drug Dose Now Act. Swalwell previously introduced this bill with Tom Emmer, R-Minn., in February 2022.
With the Right Drug Dose Now Act, lawmakers are looking to update the National Action Plan for Adverse Drug Event Prevention by incorporating research on PGx. The bill aims to improve patients' access to PGx testing within clinical care by supporting educational campaigns for healthcare providers; establishing criteria for electronic health record systems to integrate information on PGx testing and drug-gene associations; and launching a US Government Accountability Office study on the impact of including drug-gene interaction information on drug labels.
"By factoring genetic testing results into medical prescription decisions, we can have the knowledge to better treat a range of conditions while reducing adverse drug events," Swalwell, who also co-chairs the Congressional Personalized Medicine Caucus, said in a statement. "PGx will help medical professionals and patients be well informed to decide effective treatments for each clinical case."
The bill is backed by the Personalized Medicine Coalition, American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, Association for Managed Care Pharmacy, American Society of Pharmacovigilance, and American Pharmacogenomics Association, and several firms providing PGx services including Invitae, Genomind, OneOme, GenXys, YouScript, Aransica, AccessDx, 2bPrecise, the GTMRx Institute, and Sanford Imagenetics.