Obama launches $215M precision medicine initiative

Although it only got a short mention during his State of the Union Address, President Obama now has offered up details on a new $215 million Precision Medicine Initiative that seeks to revolutionize healthcare delivery and the treatment of diseases.

The initiative entails a model of patient-powered research to accelerate biomedical discoveries and provide clinicians with new tools, knowledge and therapies to select which treatments will work best for which patients. The objectives of the initiative include: more and better treatments for cancer; creation of a voluntary national research cohort; commitment to protecting privacy; regulatory modernization; and public-private partnerships, according to the White House.

The $215 million investment will support the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as well as the FDA and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and their efforts to research, develop and innovate within the precision medicine space.

The breakdown of funding is as follows:

  • $130 million to NIH for development of a voluntary national research cohort of a million or more volunteers
  • $70 million to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of NIH, to scale up efforts to identify genomic drivers in cancer and apply that knowledge in the development of cancer treatments
  • $10 million to FDA to acquire additional expertise and advance the development of high quality, curated databases to support the regulatory structure needed to advance innovation in precision medicine and protect public health
  • $5 million to ONC to support the development of interoperability standards

LLearn more about the initiative here.

 

 

 

 

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