Mayo Clinic Issued Patent Covering Personalized Psychiatric Medicine Technology Commercialized by AssureRx Health

MASON, Ohio and ROCHESTER, Minn., April 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Mayo Clinic and AssureRx Health, Inc. today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued U.S. Patent No. 8,401,801 encompassing "Methods for Selecting Medications" by Mayo inventors Drs. David A. Mrazek, John L. Black, and Dennis J. O'Kane. The Mayo Clinic patent covers the use of multiple pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic genes for the purpose of prioritizing the selection of medications prescribed to treat patients with depression and other psychiatric disorders. AssureRx Health is the exclusive worldwide licensee of the technology covered under this patent and has developed pharmacogenomic tests commercialized under the brand GeneSight.

GeneSight is a unique pharmacogenomic decision support tool that tests for clinically important genetic variants affecting a patient's response to psychiatric medications. GeneSight helps clinicians make informed, evidence-based decisions about proper drug selection, delivered in a simple and easily understood report. Prescribing a medication regimen that is more likely to succeed because it is tailored to the individual patient's genetic profile enables the clinician to better manage the patient's disease and improve patient outcomes. A Mayo led study published recently in Translational Psychiatry (Oct. 2012) compared GeneSight-guided prescribing versus treatment as usual prescribing in patients over an 8 week period resulting in up to a 4-fold increase in symptom improvement for GeneSight-guided patients.

"The Mayo Clinic patent represents a significant advance in the use of multi-gene pharmacogenomic panels to prioritize the selection of antidepressants and other psychiatric medications," said James S. Burns, president and CEO of AssureRx Health. "A multi-variant analysis of these genes can predict a patient's ability to tolerate or respond to specific psychiatric medications. Mayo Clinic technology provided the foundation for AssureRx Health to bring novel, actionable and clinically-validated treatment decision support products into clinical use for patients with neuropsychiatric disorders. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Mayo Clinic to further develop these exciting innovations."

"Thanks to groundbreaking research, Mayo Clinic is one of the leaders in pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine approaches to patient treatment," said Mark A. Frye, M.D., Chair, Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at Mayo Clinic. "The preliminary research conducted by Dr. Mrazek and colleagues points to the potential for psychiatric pharmacogenomics to improve patient care in routine clinical practice."  

About Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic is a non-profit leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, view www.mayoclinic.com or www.mayoclinic.org/news.

About AssureRx Health

AssureRx Health, Inc. is a personalized medicine company that specializes in pharmacogenomics and is dedicated to helping physicians determine the right drug for individual patients suffering from neuropsychiatric and other disorders. The company was founded to commercialize industry-leading personalized medicine technology for neuropsychiatric disorders. Mayo Clinic and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center are equity holders and technology collaborators. Mayo Clinic and Drs. Mrazek, Black and O'Kane have a financial interest in the technology referenced in this news release. For more information about AssureRx Health, Inc. visit www.assurexhealth.com.

About GeneSight

GeneSight is a laboratory developed pharmacogenomic test that uses cutting edge technology to measure and analyze clinically important genomic variants in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. The results of the GeneSight report can help a clinician understand the way a patient's unique genomic makeup may affect certain psychiatric drugs. The analysis is based on pharmacogenomics, the study of genomic factors that influence an individual's response to drug treatments, FDA approved manufacturer's drug labels, peer-reviewed scientific and clinical publications, and proven drug pharmacology. Quick turnaround time, combined with a customized report of the patient's genomic makeup, clinical experience and other factors can help a physician make personalized drug treatment choices for each patient.

SOURCE AssureRx Health, Inc.