News
07-Nov-2005 - LGC licenses first DNA test for response to
schizophrenia treatment from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s
College London
New agreement brings personalised medicine services to
psychiatry: First DNA test to predict individual patient response
to clozapine
LGC, Europe´s leading independent analytical laboratory
providing advanced chemical, biochemical and forensic analysis, has
announced an exclusive agreement with King’s College London to
offer the first pharmacogenetic screening service which will
predict whether a patient with schizophrenia will respond
positively to the antipsychotic drug clozapine. Developed following
13 years of research by Professor Robert Kerwin and Dr Maria Arranz
from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s, the test will help
clinicians tailor the management of medication for schizophrenia to
the needs of the patient.
Schizophrenia is considered the most chronic, debilitating and
costly mental illness and affects between 1-2% of all populations.
There is no permanent cure, but symptoms of the illness can be
controlled by antipsychotic drugs. However, not all patients
benefit from treatment and up to 40% of patients do not show a
complete response - this is known as Treatment Resistant
Schizophrenia (TRS).
Although clozapine is the only licensed drug with proven
efficiency in the treatment of TRS its treatment can cause
potentially serious side effects. It is therefore commonly only
prescribed to patients when other medicines have failed. On average
patients currently progress through four different antipsychotic
medications over a period of five years before being treated with
clozapine.
The test, which will be available to the clinical community from
early January 2006, is a test based on a panel of single nucleotide
polymorphisms (SNPs) that will be analysed using LGC´s proprietary
fluorescent HyBeacons® DNA probe technology. Dr Paul Debenham,
Director of Life Sciences at LGC, said: "This new prediction
test of treatment response to clozapine should prove to be an
extremely valuable tool for clinicians, aiding them in their
prescribing choice of antipsychotic drug for their patients. It
will mean that clozapine can be prescribed much earlier on in the
treatment of patients who are predicted to be responsive to the
drug, thus reducing the suffering time of the patient and the
associated cost of care. We are therefore delighted to be in a
position to offer this kind of screening service to clinicians for
the first time. This agreement is also great news for LGC, enabling
us to build on our recent status as the first independent
laboratory to become a member of the NHS Genetic Testing
Network."
King´s Professor Robert Kerwin said: "This agreement follows
13 years of research at IoP into treatment for schizophrenia,
working with more than 200 patients treated with clozapine. We are
therefore delighted to be sharing the results of our research and
to be working with LGC to be able to bring a viable example of
personalised medicine into fruition."
Dr Paul Debenham and Professor Kerwin will be giving a
presentation to discuss this new screening service at the ´Good
Practice in Biological Investigation´ conference at Institute of
Psychiatry, Denmark Hill campus, King’s College London, on Tuesday
8 November 2005.
Notes to Editors