Right-dose medication could save NHS millions and improve patient care

05 May 2017

Amin Rostami, Professor of Systems Pharmacology in the Division of Pharmacy & Optometry, has led 21 of the world’s leading pharmacologists to urge drugs companies and governments to help change the way that medication is dosed by signing up to a ‘roadmap for change’.

Professor Rostami believes the NHS is slipping behind other healthcare systems as advances in science mean a one-size-fits-all approach is outdated, costing the NHS millions of pounds.

Each patient, he argues, requires accurate individual dosing but because drugs are dispensed in standardised units, this is done hardly anywhere in the NHS.

He said: “It’s difficult to accurately calculate the cost to patients and the NHS, but there is no doubt the figures are significant, so there is an urgent need to bring drug dosing into the 21st century.

“Because science has advanced so much nowadays, patients can be dosed far more accurately, relatively easily.

“But though precision dosing is possible in most therapeutic areas, it is more or less not happening anywhere in the NHS.”

He added: “We feel there is no overall strategy for health care in precision dosing and certainly a disconnect between academic research and clinical care in this area.

“NHS investment in precision dosing will save millions of pounds in the long run, as well as improve outcomes and patient care.”

Dr Adam Darwich, also from the Division, who has developed computer models on drug absorption after weight loss surgery said:

“Our research demonstrates that it is possible to achieve personalised dosing in healthcare. Many of the tools to enable this already exist, the main challenges are to do with how we can practically incorporate these into healthcare and test cost-benefit in clinical practice.”

The roadmap is outlined in a paper published in the journal Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

Read the full article HERE.