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with their doctor. With the right information and support, patients will be able to
participate alongside their doctors in making more informed decisions. Even the
most promising technologies cannot fully realize their potential if the relevant pol-
icy, legal, and regulatory issues are not adequately addressed.
An important aim of pharmacogenomics is to contribute to some of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDG), i.e., by providing an incentive to public
research laboratories and pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs for their low
income countries so that they have a fair share of advances in healthcare. A review
of the literature indicates that pharmacogenomic research has focused mainly on
non-communicable disease such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and neurologi-
cal disorders but paid little attention to infections and orphan diseases (Olivier and
Williams-Jones 2014 ). Thus research in the fi eld of pharmacogenomics has failed in
its promise to contribute to the MDGs by reducing global health inequalities.
References
Collins FS, Hamburg MA. First FDA authorization for next-generation sequencer. N Engl J Med.
2013;369:2369–71.
Katara P. Single nucleotide polymorphism and its dynamics for pharmacogenomics. Interdiscip
Sci. 2014;6:85–92.
Kohler JR, Guennel T, Marshall SL. Analytical strategies for discovery and replication of genetic
effects in pharmacogenomic studies. Pharmgenomics Pers Med. 2014;7:217–25.
Olivier C, Williams-Jones B. Global pharmacogenomics: where is the research taking us? Glob
Public Health. 2014;9:312–24.
5 Pharmacogenomics