Then they ran into technical hurdles, and the pendulum swung the other way. Now, says Krieg, a few anti-sense compounds are starting to show promise. Among them is a drug called Vitravene, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in August and is used to prevent blindness in AIDS patients infected with cytomegalovirus. Genetic Profiles Genes don't just tell you how to make drugs. They can also tell you whom to treat.
All drugs have some side effects.
By scanning a patient's genetic profile, drug companies may soon be able to figure out ahead of time who is most likely to suffer an adverse reaction. But it seems to work pretty well in everyone else. So Abbott has asked the French company Genset to see if it can develop a genetic profile of those patients who should never take the medication. The technology isn't foolproof, but it may give Abbott the tools with which to market its drug more safely.