Wellness Labs
Precision Healthcare

Predicting the rate of drug metabolism and clearance based on an individual’s genetic makeup, pharmacogenetic (PGx) testing makes treatment more effective. The limited office time, knowledge, and experience of primary care practitioners, however, contributes to PGx’s slow uptake.

“PGx is a test everybody should take. It reveals crucial details about your compatibility with the medication you take and should be one of the first tests given when somebody is born. While PGx does not cover all medications, it is accurate and provides optimal dosing for a lot of them,” says Dennis Loudermilk, owner of Wellness Labs.

Wellness Labs believes the higher price point associated with PGx testing is one of the critical reasons historically hindering its democratization. Making PGx testing more affordable and accessible would enable physicians to bypass the need for the time-consuming and often life-risking game of medication trial and error. They can easily arrive at the medication variant that best suits their patients.

Wellness Labs offers PGx testing in the $500 range, about a quarter of what the market charges. It enables cash-to-pay PGx testing for patients and their long-term care providers.

“We provide door-to-door PGx testing services for various nursing homes, enabling them to reduce the amount of antibiotics that is typically used to treat patients,” says Tom Cartwright, clinical laboratory manager at Wellness Labs.

Wellness Labs has partnered with genetic counselors, who position themselves at the disposal of physicians and patients to comprehend and make better sense of PGx test results. It enables physicians to create an improved treatment plan for patients. Quicker turnaround time for all its PGx tests is another key differentiator for Wellness Labs. Unlike its competitors, who leave patients waiting until they get a certain number of samples on the plate, Wellness Labs can deliver PGx test results quickly, be it for a single patient or more. To further up the ante of its service delivery, the company is creating an app—to be launched in the spring of next year—that will enable patients and care providers to easily access their PGx test results. Currently, online ordering and final results are viewed through their web portal.

We provide door-to-door PGx testing services for various nursing homes, enabling them to reduce the amount of antibiotics that is typically used to treat patients

PGx testing also holds great potential in the psychiatry medicines domain. Instances are aplenty where the typical three weeks window for physicians’ ‘testing’ of psych medication on patients spelled self-harm. Wellness Labs, to this end, caters to a growing number of psychiatrists. It also offers a purpose-built mental health PGx testing panel along with its comprehensive and cardiovascular PGx testing panel. Similarly, Wellness Labs provides cancer genomics (CGx) testing.

Addressing the most significant roadblocks hindering PGx democratization, Wellness Labs hopes to broaden the scope of its offerings to spur a further reduction in PGx testing costs by increasing order volumes.