Keynote presentation 8: From Pharmacogenomic Evidence to Clinical Guidance and Implementation: Translating Variability into Safer Medicines
Tracks
Track 4
Track 5
| Thursday, July 16, 2026 |
| 4:45 PM - 5:30 PM |
Overview
Prof Jesse Swen
Details
Robust evidence from retrospective, prospective, and real world studies has firmly established genetic variability as a key determinant of interindividual differences in drug response, efficacy, and particularly safety. In current practice, pharmacogenomic testing is increasingly applied in both reactive and pre therapeutic settings, predominantly through single gene approaches for selected drug–gene pairs. The development of internationally recognized clinical recommendations, such as those from the Dutch Pharmacogenetics Working Group (DPWG) and the Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium (CPIC), has been pivotal in moving pharmacogenomics from discovery science into clinically actionable guidance and implementation. This presentation will highlight how these advances are reshaping clinical pharmacology, enabling a transition from isolated, indication driven testing toward pre emptive, panel based pharmacogenomic strategies embedded in routine care. Current progress in translating pharmacogenomics to clinical practice will be discussed. Finally, future directions and challenges for further improving our ability to predict drugs response will be explored with the ultimate aim to deliver safer, more effective, and more individualized pharmacotherapy across healthcare systems.
Speaker
Prof Jesse Swen
LUMC- Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum
From Pharmacogenomic Evidence to Clinical Guidance and Implementation: Translating Variability into Safer Medicines
Biography
Jesse Swen PharmD, PhD is a full professor of clinical pharmacy, in particular translational pharmacogenetics. He works as a clinical pharmacist-clinical pharmacologist at the Department of Clinical Pharmacy & Toxicology, Leiden University Medical Center where he is the chair of the laboratory of the hospital pharmacy.
The long-term central goal of his career is to improve the outcomes of drug treatment by gaining a better understanding of the genetic mechanisms that result in inter-individual variability in drug response. To this end, he is working on the following research topics:
• Dissecting the impact of rare, structural and regulatory variants on drug absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME)
• Elucidating the mismatch between the drug metabolizer genotype and the capacity of an individual to metabolize drugs (phenoconversion).
• Translating pharmacogenomics to patient care.
This work is seamlessly integrated with his work as chair of the pharmacy laboratory. He has (co-) authored more than 200 (Web of Science indexed) articles in international peer reviewed scientific journals and several chapters in books. He is one of the primary investigators of the “Ubiquitous Pharmacogenomics” project (www.upgx.eu) and leader of the PREPARE trial that assessed the clinical utility of pharmacogenetics panel testing across 7 European sites. In addition, he is an active member of the Dutch Pharmacogenetics Working Group (DPWG) and the US Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium (CPIC).
Session chair
Sarah Hilmer
Royal North Shore Hospital & The University of Sydney
