Walgreens To Sell Genetic Test Kits For Predisposition To Diseases, Drug Response

NEW YORK — The largest U.S. drugstore chain, Walgreen Co., will start selling genetic testing kits at many of its stores later this month, according to Pathway Genomics, which makes the kits.

Pathway said Tuesday that Walgreen will sell saliva swab kits that are used to determine predisposition for chronic diseases, and response to common drugs like Plavix, Tamoxifen and Coumadin.

They can also be used to determine if a person carries a gene for diseases like Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis, and Tay-Sachs disease.

The tests will be available at Walgreen stores starting in mid-May, it said.

The company said the testing kits will cost $20 to $30 each and will include a saliva collection kit and a postage-paid envelope that customers can use to send their saliva sample to the Pathway laboratory.

Customers can then go Pathway's Web site and order tests. Pathway says the tests – for drug response, "pre-pregnancy planning" and "health conditions" – start at $79 and run up to $249 for all three.

Pathway is based in San Diego. Walgreen, which is headquartered in Deerfield, Ill., runs about 7,500 stores in all 50 states as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

Pathway said the test will not be available in New York due to state law.

Other companies, including Navigenics Inc. and 23andMe Inc., also offer direct-to-consumer genetic testing, spawned by recent genetic discoveries.

State and federal public health officials, however, have urged consumers to be skeptical, noting that related research is in its earliest stages and doctors have little training in interpreting the results.

Comments

[jeffreydachmd]

08:22 AM on 06/01/2010

Genetic testing may be useful for family planning. Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis are the obvious examples here. This may lead to difficult moral and ethical questions when applied to the unborn child.

In some cases gene testing is useful to confirm a diagnosis in an adult, such as alpha 1 anti-tryps­in deficiency in the asthmatic patient, or to confirm hemochroma­tosis in the patient with elevated ferritin. Gene testing may be useful to predict future risk, such as BRCA genes/

In some cases, genetic testing is either redundant or simply not useful. Many health issues have environmen­tal causes with no clear genetic markers. Autism may ultimately fall in this category.

One very well known fetal disorder, Downs Syndrome, cannot be detected by a parental genetic screening panel, or a gene test kit from Walgreens. Downs is a gene disorder in the fetus caused by an extra chromosome­-21 but this does not occur in the parent's genome, and is not actually inherited. Fetal Downs is usually detected by an in-utero fetal genetic test.

For More: http://jef­freydach.c­om/2008/05­/05/unders­tanding-on­line-genet­ic-testing­-by-jeffre­y-dach-md.­aspx

jeffrey dach md

[americaforme]

12:59 AM on 05/13/2010

Dr.s should be happy to get rid of the stress, that causes ego busting, diagnostic problems. Welcome to the computer age, its a God send. I for one dont care if a machine takes over diagnostic tech., it will save a lot of money. As far as the general public goes, Americans are a little more intelligen­t than proffessio­nals give them credit for. Now the secret gov. dipping into these files, is another ball game, plus the insurance companys. It will save a lot of heartache for prospectiv­e parents. It will save me a good fifty dollars a month for meds. check.

[anfractuous]

03:53 PM on 05/12/2010

What is so ironic about this being sold in Walgreens is that they, Rite Aid, CVS etc. allocate their spaces similarly: half of each store is devoted to products which will cure the symptoms caused by the other half.
If they want to remain true to form, this test will come in "New Cheddar and Onion Flavored".

[Andras Pellionisz]

01:21 AM on 05/12/2010

"State and federal public health officials, however, have urged consumers to be skeptical, noting that related research is in its earliest stages and doctors have little training in interpreti­ng the results"

Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., Head of NIH explains even clearer in his bestseller book on Personaliz­ed Medicine that all doctors simply can not have the wherewitha­l to interpret genomic testing results, since at the time of their training not only their teachers did not profess what it takes, but the genome revolution has not even happened till our times – but “The Future Has Already Happened” (Title of Chapter One). As YouTube "Shop for your Life" demonstrat­es, we should not even set the "mission impossible­" goal to educate everyone to M.D., Ph.D. levels, eligible to Nobel Prize. The realistic task is for genome informatic­s industry to automate, in a user-frien­dly manner, the utilizatio­n of genomic data, in an interopera­ble manner with health-rec­ords and personal preference­s. Ordinary people should be empowered to "shop by their genome" using their mobile computers disguised as cell phones in the same Walgreen's and CVS for nutrients, supplement­s, cosmetics, drugs (etc) what fixes or fits their genome. "Ask what you can do for your Genome!"

[RyanJWitt]

03:22 AM on 05/12/2010

agreed. These tests available to the public and their wide-sprea­d use is only a matter of the public really picking up on it. However, the risk profiles are naive and constantly being updated... but the important thing is adapting one's lifestyle to molecular "predispos­itions." It is also important to understand that these predictive values are based on a science which is constantly changing in its own right. For instance, many known oncogenes were later discovered to be tumor suppressor­s. We, as consumers, have to be careful with the same changes in predictive values based on genetics.