SEATTLE -- A Seattle company is claiming a major medical breakthrough.

The company, Genelex Corporation, says its new DNA test can save the lives of 50,000 people who die every year from bad reactions to medication.

Genelex says prescription medications have radically different effects in different people and by testing your DNA, they say they can predict whether a prescription drug might work for you or make you sick.

"The ideal with the DNA testing is to identify people in the population that will have a bad reaction to a drug, or that the drug won't work in, and treat them in another way," said Howard Coleman, Genelex's founder.

The process costs $600 and it takes two weeks to get the results.

Every year, 100,000 people die from bad reactions to medication, or combinations you might not think about, like mixing cough syrup with a drug like Prozac. Genelex says your DNA will tell them if drugs like Celebrex will make you better or worse.

"If you don't have the genes that allow you to process the Celebrex normally, the Celebrex is going to build up in your bloodstream, and potentially cause an adverse reaction to it," Coleman said.

Scientists told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News there's no hard evidence yet that DNA drug reaction testing works. They say more studies need to be done to prove your DNA will warn you when not to take a drug.

But the founder of Genelex says the test will show if a drug like codeine will have any effect on you.

"Codeine doesn't work in about seven to 10 percent of the population because it has to be activated by one of these enzymes. If you don't have the gene for that, you can't activate codeine, and it won't work."

The bottom line is you should discuss whether to have the test with your doctor.

Scientists say DNA drug reaction testing is promising, in theory -- but it could take years to prove it works.