Beginning in 2020, the National Institutes of Health will fund clinical trials assessing the use of genomic medicine interventions to treat chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, depression and chronic pain.
The first clinical trial will evaluate whether early access to a patient's genomic data can benefit treatment of high blood pressure, hypertension and chronic kidney disease. A second trial will test whether patients with acute post-surgical pain, chronic pain and depression experience better outcomes if physicians take pharmacogenomics into account when prescribing opioids and antidepressants.
The NIH will invest up to $42 million over the course of five years into the trials. The initiative comprises the second phase of the Implementing Genomics in Practice (IGNITE) Network, which is funded by the NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute and was initially launched to incorporate genomic information into electronic health records.
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