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3 pg Ad Vertical_2.25W x 9.875H_PRINT.pdf 1 2017-12-08 1:21 PM
THE CASE FOR
PHARMACOGENETICS
Generally, the numbers make a pretty
strong case for pharmacogenetic testing,
says Prouse. Forty-one per cent of
Canadians are currently taking prescription
medications, according to research
stats gathered by P3.
An estimated 840,000 hospitalized patients
are given drugs that cause serious
adverse reactions for a total of 2.74 million
serious adverse drug reactions. About
128,000 people die from drugs prescribed
to them, according to 2014 research from
Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra
Center for Ethics.
One in four hospital admittances are
drug-related, which costs us up to $17.7 billion
per year, according to P3. And in the
United States, adverse drug reactions are the
fourth leading cause of death, says Prouse.
“That’s ahead of pulmonary disease,
that’s ahead of diabetes, AIDS, pneumonia,
accidents and automobile deaths,” he
said. “It’s a severe problem in our society,
and the reason is because physicians
are generally prescribing from a one-sizefits
all philosophy – ‘What worked on
one patient surely should work for another.’
But what science is showing us is that
we actually are all unique, and we all have
unique sets of liver enzymes – and based
on those unique sets of liver enzymes, we
are all unique in the way that we metabolize
medications.”
But by allowing employees to utilize
pharmacogenetic testing – or “drug compatibility
testing” – many of these adverse
reactions could be eliminated, says Prouse.
“If you’re on the right medication the
first time, then you’re not going to be
suffering from the long trial and error period
of selecting a medication that works,”
he said. “If you’re on the wrong medication,
and you have a mental illness, you’re
already having to deal with all those issues
with the mental illness – you don’t
need another problem that’s making the
situation worse, such as a medication
incompatibility.”
Many statistical reviews have shown
that roughly 40 per cent of mental illness
medications won’t work the first time;
they’re just not effective, he says.
“It’s literally a shot in the dark selecting
these medications. Our experience is
that this tool has become a very targeted
approach to combatting mental illness in
the workplace,” said Prouse. “One in five
people will suffer from a mental illness at
some time in their life. And when it comes
to the treatment component, it’s not like
removing an aberration on their skin, and
when that’s abolished, the medication is
working – in this case, it’s all in the beholder’s
head. And it’s really hard to keep
that objective.”
THE NEW DRUG BENEFIT PLAN
Pharmacogenetics has been shown to
reduce disability claims, increase productivity
and improve health outcomes
among a general employee pool, says
Prouse. And if that’s not enough, it’s also
a valuable tool to help contain the burgeoning
costs of drug plans amidst an
aging workforce.
“We have found that the biggest use
of pharmacogenetics to make your drug
plan more effective is for people who are
on polypharmacy. So imagine someone
who is on three antidepressants. This is
what I often see in the field ... They first
get prescribed the medication as a onesize
fits-all solution from their doctor,
and imagine they’re a poor metabolizer of
that medication. So now…they go back
to the doctor and say, ‘I’m not feeling well
on this.’ And the doctor says, ‘Let’s try
another antidepressant to combat that,’”
said Prouse.
Following this pattern, employees will
often end up using more and more medications
to cope with adverse drug reactions
from the initial ones.
“What we do is identify which one single
medication out of that whole cocktail
would work, and predict which ones are
ineffective. So what it could do is reduce
three ineffective medications to one effective
medication – which would drastically
reduce your drug plan expenditure, but
also improve the health of the patient simultaneously,”
said Prouse.
The testing process itself is pretty
straightforward, he says – employees with
an organization enrolled in the program
can call P3 directly at a toll-free number
to have a consultant walk them through
the process.
“After that’s done, the employee will be
able to see what they want to see on their
26 ❚ CONFERENCE ISSUE 2018 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL