Another drug that could cause severe harm is Procainamide. All of these drug reactions are quite severe, and all of these drugs are quite commonly prescribed without much forethought by the doctor. Pharmacogenetics also raises perplexing marketing, safety, and regulatory issues. Many Pharmaceutical companies are teaming with research centers to develop connections between certain ailments and the drugs that heal them. Woosley's staff now routinely screens patients in clinical drug trials for these mutations.
Hypertension is most commonly cause by high salt intake.
Myriad has developed a test for mutants of the angiotensinogen gene, which codes for a protein that regulates salt retention. The test is being evaluated in a large clinical trial at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. For the past year James Kennedy has been studying 180 patients with schizophrenia to see whether individuals who have a mutant gene for a dopamine receptor are less likely to be helped by the anti-psychotic drug clozapine. One fear is that pharmacogenetics will shrink the market for a particular drug by limiting who can take it. Drug companies also worry that drug development might be slowed if the agencies charged with regulating new drugs begin requiring pharmacogenetic data.