Genetic testing improves medication safety and effectiveness

Professor Mikko Niemi, a pharmacogenetics expert at the University of Helsinki, studies the impact of genes on the effectiveness and safety of medications. In a recently published study, the medications of 1.4 million Finnish patients were analysed, revealing that a quarter of patients received medications whose efficacy or safety could have been improved by considering the patient’s genome. The study used data from registries of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and biobank data.