According to a significant report, we have the technology to change the face of medicine by accurately matching medications to people’s genetic code. Because of small changes in how our bodies function, some medications are rendered useless or even lethal.

The British Pharmacological Society and the Royal College of Physicians say that a genetic test can predict how effectively medications will work in your body. The tests may be available on the National Health Service (NHS) next year. Your genetic code, also known as DNA, is a set of instructions for how your body works. Pharmacogenomics is the science of matching medications to your DNA. Jane Burns of Liverpool, who lost two-thirds of her skin after a poor reaction to new epilepsy treatment, could have benefited from it. Stevens-Johnson syndrome, which affects the skin and is considerably more common in persons who are born with particular mutations in their genetic code, was triggered by her epilepsy medication.

Prof. Sir Munir Pirmohamed, from the University of Liverpool, said that we needed to move away from “one drug and one dose fits all” to a more personalized approach, where patients are given the right drug at the right dose to improve the effectiveness and safety of medicines. He also added, “what we’re doing is really going to a new era of medicine, because we’re all individuals and we all vary in the way we respond to drugs.” He claims that as we get older and are prescribed additional prescriptions, there’s a 70% probability that by the time we’re 70, we’ll be taking at least one drug that is influenced by our genetic makeup.