Mayo Clinic announced Monday that it is licensing a genotyping test for warfarin sensitivity in clinical and research settings from Ithaca, New York-based Rheonix Inc.
Warfarin is an anticoagulant and is commonly prescribed to prevent blood clot formation. One of the challenges in prescribing warfarin, however, is that patients have to be monitored through blood testing to ensure that an appropriate and safe dosage has been given.
Earlier in May, Bristol Myers Squibb recalled 1.85 million 5-milligram Coumadin tablets in the U.S. because a test of a single tablet from a returned bottle revealed than the potency was too strong. Coumadin is the brand name for warfarin.
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“Until now, determining the correct dosage to prescribe a patient has been a matter of trial and error,” said Dennis O’Kane, associate professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo, in a news release. “Using this genetic test better enables physicians to administer suitable doses of warfarin individualized to each patient and to identify if they are at risk for forming blood clots due to sub-therapeutic dosing, or at risk of severe bleeding due to overdosing of warfarin.”
The genotyping test will be available for all patients of Mayo Clinic and international patients who can access it through Mayo Clinic’s reference laboratory, Mayo Medical Laboratories.
“This collaboration is an important step in bringing commercial reality to the long-promised potential of pharmacogenomic testing for well-established pharmaceuticals and for next-generation pharmaceutical development,” says Tony Eisenhut, president of Rheonix, in a news release.