Medco is not the first pharmacy-service firm to close a deal in the pharmacogenetics area. In November, pharmacy healthcare provider CVS Caremark of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, signed a strategic partnership with Generation Health located in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Both pharmacy benefits managers had already set up some personalized medicine services, particularly in oncology. Medco, for instance, established a personalized medicine research center headed by Felix Frueh, formerly a specialist on personalized medicine at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Several trends helped draw pharmacy-benefit companies into the personalized medicine arena. One is the huge explosion in the number of genetic tests. Medco's Jane Barlow estimates that “up to a 1,000 [current genetic tests] need more benefits management around them.” She says there is about 20% waste in the testing business because of inappropriate interpretation or just because doctors aren't sure how to use new tests (Nat. Biotechnol. 28, 117–119, 2010). “This is an area that continues to grow rapidly and the information changes overnight,” says Barlow, who is vice president of medical strategy and clinical quality at the giant pharmacy provider.
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