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Background There is an increasing interest worldwide in investigating healthcare stakeholders’ perceptions and intentions to adopt pharmacogenomics (PGx) into clinical practice. However, the existing inquiries based on well-established theories and models that interpret their intentions to implement PGx are scarce. This study is the first that examines the impact of selected factors on health science students’ intention to adopt genetic testing applications using the technology acceptance model while it compares two different cultural groups: Greeks (Europe; Christian) and Malays (Asia; Muslim). Results Malay students were more persuaded about benefits of genomics for drug management compared to their Greek counterparts. However, participants from both countries appear to be particularly convinced about the benefits of genomics on disease management. Moreover, students from both countries considered the potential misuse of genetic information by corporate or government bodies as their most important concern; Greek students appeared to be considerably less worried than Malay about other probable hazards such as the deficient protection of privacy and confidentiality, which could be attributed to their religious background. Participants from both samples expressed very positive attitudes towards genetic research and testing and their favourable intentions to adopt genetic testing for personal use. Exploratory factors analysis and path analysis yielded quite similar results for both samples. Path analysis revealed that the factors of attitudes, concerns, drug management benefits and disease management benefits significantly influenced students’ intentions to adopt genetic testing for personal use, with attitudes being the most inspirational factor with rather high impact, while training did not seem to affect participant’s intentions. The squared multiple correlation of both models was quite satisfactory reaching to 0.55 for the Malaysian sample. Conclusion Similarities in the results of the two groups along with the relevant validity and reliability tests indicate that the proposed model is a good fit for future studies to interpret stakeholders’ intentions to adopt genetic testing. Therefore, it can provide a promising and reliable basis for future model development to explain the relationships between intentions to adopt genetic testing and its predictors.

Pharmacogenomics is becoming an important part of clinical practice and it is considered one of the basic pillars of personalised medicine. However, the rate of pharmacogenomics adoption is still low in many healthcare systems, especially in low- or middle-income countries. The low level of awareness of healthcare specialists could be a potential reason due to which pharmacogenomics application is still in a premature stage but there are several other barriers that impede the aforementioned process, including the lack of the proper promotion of pharmacogenomic testing among interested stakeholders, such as healthcare professionals and biomedical scientists. In this study, we outline the available marketing theories and innovation that are applied to personalized medicine interventions that would catalyze the adoption of pharmacogenomic testing services in clinical practice. We also present the current ethical and legal framework about genomic data and propose ways to tackle the main concerns mentioned in the literature and to improve the marketing perspective of PGx.

Background Pharmacists’ contribution to pharmacogenomics (PGx) implementation in clinical practice is vital, but a great proportion of them are not aware of PGx and its applications. This highlights the university education’s crucial role to prepare pharmacists to face future challenges in such a constantly evolving and demanding environment. Objectives Our study aims to examine pharmacy students’ training satisfaction, knowledge, self-confidence and attitudes towards PGx on their intentions for postgraduate training in PGx and personalised medicine (PM). Methods An initial model on students’ intention to pursue postgraduate training in PGx and PM and its predicting factors, based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), was proposed. Based on it, a questionnaire was developed and distributed to 346 pharmacy students of all study years, capturing the selected factors influencing students’ intentions to postgraduate training in PGx and PM, as well as their demographics. Structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis was employed to determine the effects of both the examined factors and demographics on students’ intentions. Results Students did not consider themselves adequately prepared for using PGx in clinical practice. Their attitudes towards PGx implementation were the most important factor influencing their intentions to pursue postgraduate training in PGx and PM. Other factors such as self-confidence and training satisfaction also affected students’ intentions, but to a lower extent. Students of the last two study years (40% of the whole sample) and male (36%) students stated to be less willing to pursue PGx-related studies in the future. Only 10% of the participants claimed to have undergone a recent PGx or genetic test, but this did not affect their intentions. Conclusion There is an important gap in pharmacy school curriculum regarding PGx and PM training which coupled with the slow rate of PGx and PM implementation into clinical practice seems to restrain students’ aspiration to further expand their knowledge and horizons in terms of PGx and PM.

Background Cardiovascular diseases and especially Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) constitute a major health issue impacting millions of patients worldwide. Being a leading cause of death and hospital admissions in many European countries including Spain, it accounts for enormous amounts of healthcare expenditures for its management. Clopidogrel is one of the oldest antiplatelet medications used as standard of care in ACS. Methods In this study, we performed an economic evaluation study to estimate whether a genome-guided clopidogrel treatment is cost-effective compared to conventional one in a large cohort of 243 individuals of Spanish origin suffering from ACS and treated with clopidogrel. Data were derived from the U-PGx PREPARE clinical trial. Effectiveness was measured as survival of individuals while study data on safety and efficacy, as well as on resource utilization associated with each adverse drug reaction were used to measure costs to treat these adverse drug reactions. A generalized linear regression model was used to estimate cost differences for both study groups. Results Based on our findings, PGx-guided treatment group is cost-effective. PGx-guided treatment demonstrated to have 50% less hospital admissions, reduced emergency visits and almost 13% less ADRs compared to the non-PGx approach with mean QALY 1.07 (95% CI, 1.04–1.10) versus 1.06 (95% CI, 1.03–1.09) for the control group, while life years for both groups were 1.24 (95% CI, 1.20–1.26) and 1.23 (95% CI, 1.19–1.26), respectively. The mean total cost of PGx-guided treatment was 50% less expensive than conventional therapy with clopidogrel [€883 (95% UI, €316–€1582), compared to €1,755 (95% UI, €765–€2949)]. Conclusion These findings suggest that PGx-guided clopidogrel treatment represents a cost-effective option for patients suffering from ACS in the Spanish healthcare setting.