Pharmacogenomics in clinical drug development and potential for alopecia areata.

Alopecia areata, alopecia totalis, and alopecia universalis likely represent a constellation of related diseases with similar, yet distinct heritability markers. There is currently no known curative therapy that works universally for all patients. Pharmacogenomic research enables the pharmaceutical industry to understand variability of patient responses to drugs during clinical drug development and during post-marketing surveillance. Understanding the genetic basis for patient response/non-response can enable the development of individualized therapies for those patients with an inherited basis for altered response to drug therapy. There are multiple examples of drugs that now contain a recommendation for genetic testing before dosing in their drug labels, directing clinicians to obtain genetic information for each individual patient in order to help direct drug therapy.