Transformational news17 Mar 2025 11:07
Scottish Government announcement of investment to support national pharmacogenetic testing of CYP2C19 in Stroke patients and MT-RNR1 in newborn babies in NHS Scotland.
genedrive plc (AIM: GDR), the point-of-care pharmacogenetic testing company, is pleased to note an announcement by the Scottish Government of investment into phased delivery of two national scale pharmacogenetic testing programs utilising genedrive's MT-RNR1-ID and CYP2C19-ID kits in NHS Scotland. The public announcement is available at https://www.gov.scot/news/improving-health-through-innovation/.
The initial deployment of these programmes is through funding being provided to the Accelerated National Adoption ("ANIA") pathway following referral from ANIA to the Scottish Health Technologies Group ("SHTG") which carried out two technology assessments that included both the Genedrive® CYP2C19 ID Kit and the Genedrive® MT-RNR1 ID Kit. Subsequently, Scotland's First Minister John Swinney delivered a speech on NHS Renewal & Recovery on 27 January 2025 (https://www.youtube.com/live/-tWX1ESlpSs) during which he stated (38:40), "The latest innovations in genetic testing will be harnessed to enable better targeting of medications, in cases ranging from recent stroke patients to newborn infants with bacterial infections. Smarter care, better care".
As outlined in the Scottish Government announcement, approximately £800,000 will fund testing newborn babies with genedrive's MT-RNR-ID kit, in a phased national roll out over 18 months with first clinical testing beginning in October. Once fully implemented it is expected that over 3,000 babies per year will receive the MT-RNR1-ID test throughout Scotland. A total of £1.1 million will support interventional CYP2C19 testing in recent stroke patients and whilst primarily focused on laboratory based testing with substantially slower turnaround times, Genedrive's CYP2C19-ID kit will be included for assessment against laboratory testing pathways in Transient Ischaemic Attack ("TIA") clinics.
Dr Gino Miele, CEO of genedrive plc, said: "This announcement from the Scottish Government is a welcome commitment to the strategic implementation of pharmacogenetic testing into clinical pathways at national scale in NHS Scotland. Aside from enabling significantly better patient outcomes, these interventional testing paradigms offer substantial financial value to pressured healthcare systems. Against a backdrop of increasing paradigm shifts from treatment to prevention and speedier, less centralised diagnostics, and also recent UK government announcements to abolish NHS England as an organisation and loss of 9,000 jobs with accompanying savings of £500m per year, it is noteworthy that CYP2C19 interventional testing alone is estimated to offer one-third of this at approximately £160m per year of value to NHS England. We look forward to working with colleagues in ANIA, and are grateful for their integrated efforts