BLOOMBERG - Many factors can affect how well a drug works: age, whether you’ve eaten, your weight and even drinking grapefruit juice. Recently, I learned skin color can also play a role.
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, highlighted this last week in the journal Human Genomics and called for drugmakers to take steps to better understand the reaction between melanin, the substance that determines skin tone, and medications.
...
Scientists Sophie Zaaijer and Simon Groen from UC Riverside laid out a cost-effective way drugmakers could investigate whether melanin affects these potential treatments. Hopefully they’ll listen.