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The FDA has received more than 20 drug submissions that included pharmacogenomic data since issuing guidance on how to do so about a year ago.

Two cancer drugs have been approved that include this kind of data to help doctors make better prescriptions.

The FDA also is exploring similar guidelines for "proteomic" data, which look at how differences in the proteins produced by a patient's genes affect responses to drugs.

The withdrawal of prescription painkiller Vioxx, and the subsequent flood of lawsuits, has focused attention on the way companies and the FDA monitor drugs after they reach the market.

But nearly two-thirds of post-market studies that companies said they would undertake hadn't been started as of last fall, according to FDA data released earlier this month.

Gottlieb said companies have a commitment to complete these studies.

"We think they're very important to the approval process," he said.

The FDA is also expanding its use of data from big health insurers to look for safety problems with new drugs across large populations, Gottlieb said.

"We know full well that a lot of these very subtle safety problems are going to be hard, and in some cases impossible, to tease out ...

until more people are taking a drug," because they are so rare, Gottlieb said.

Last week, President Bush nominated the acting FDA commissioner, Dr.

Andrew von Eschenbach, to permanently head the agency.

The FDA has...

Fairbanks.

His name also graces the Fairbanks Foundation, which is giving the institute $10 million in startup money.The scion of the family that owned The Indianapolis News, Fairbanks helped negotiate that paper's 1948 sale to Eugene C.

Pulliam.

Also in 1948, he formed Fairbanks Communications to buy WIBC-AM (1070).

Over the next 50 years, his company ran 20 radio stations, an Atlanta TV station and a charter plane company.

He also established the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network.

The 1934 Yale graduate and World War II veteran formed the foundation that bears his name in 1986.

He served as its president until his death in August 2000.- Shari Rudavsky Today, local academic, industry and community leaders plan to announce the formation of the Fairbanks Institute, whose work will differ from other research that takes a relatively narrow approach to addressing medical problems."It's kind of a bridge-building institute, and we'll be keeping the roadwork going so that the roads are always open," said Dr.

Keith March, director for Indiana University's Indiana Center for Vascular Biology and Medicine.Indianapolis serves as an ideal home for such a center because of its use of electronic medical records and an abundance of residents whose health problems make them good test subjects.The city is among only a few of its size to ...