Emma Magavern of Queen Mary University of London and colleagues analyzed data from UK pharmacovigilance registries and concluded that just three genes are responsible for three-quarters of preventable adverse drug reactions. The analysis included nearly 1.35 million adverse drug reaction reports involving 2,500 substances from 1963 to 2024. The results were published in the journal PLoS Medicine.
The researchers estimated that nine percent of the adverse events studied could have been prevented by prescribing medications based on pharmacogenomic analysis. Of these, 75 percent were associated with just three genes responsible for drug metabolism and transport—CYP2C19, CYP2D6, and SLCO1B1. Of these, 47 percent were associated with psychiatric medications, and 24 percent were associated with cardiovascular medications.
