The White House’s Precision Medicine Initiative is marking an important milestone today - its first anniversary. The initiative seeks to launch “a bold new research effort to revolutionize how we improve health and treat disease." The initiative aligns with the committee’s work to deliver #CuresNow - H.R. 6, the 21st Century Cures Act. H.R. 6 fosters responsible data sharing, collaborative research, and proactive patient participation in finding cures for their specific conditions or diseases.
Momentum is building in the collective effort to spur faster and safer cures. In addition to today’s milestone and the president’s “moon shot" initiative, the Senate HELP Committee continues to make significant progress as it considers its medical innovation package.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) commented, “We are making great strides on the path to cures. This is an important milestone for the Precision Medicine Initiative, as are the next steps outlined by the president. We have a tremendous opportunity to deliver for patients and their families, but we must continue to closely work together to advance our shared goals. We are already half way there with 21st Century Cures through the House, and we can make a huge difference by continuing the momentum."
Hope for patients is on the horizon, and we should celebrate the initiatives making the efforts to deliver #CuresNow a reality.
Feb. 25, 2016
Obama announces next steps for precision medicine effort
Health officials will announce steps Thursday toward building a massive database of people’s genetic data, the ambitious centerpiece of President Obama’s precision medicine initiative.
The National Institutes of Health has selected Vanderbilt University and Verily, formerly known as Google Life Sciences, to lead the way in researching how best to attract a diverse pool of volunteers for the effort, which officials hope will include one million people within a few years.
Unlike traditional cures, which focus on treatments that work for the average person, precision medicine is a cutting-edge field in which doctors target treatments based on their patients’ specific genetic information. Researchers believe the field especially holds immense promise in combating cancer and other serious diseases such as diabetes.
“Research on this scale promises to lead to new prevention strategies, to improvements in how drugs are prescribed, all on a personalized basis," said John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
At a White House summit Thursday morning, officials will emphasize including minority and poor people in the database, communities that are traditionally underrepresented in scientific research, and protecting the personal security of everyone who participates, while still making the data accessible for medical researchers. …
