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U.K.’s Department of Health launches DNA mapping effort
August 2013
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LONDON—The government's major drive to provide personalized
healthcare by introducing high-tech
DNA mapping for patients will start by
tackling cancer, rare diseases and infectious diseases, Jeremy Hunt, member of
Parliament for South West Surrey
and secretary of state for health, announced
on the National Health Service's 65th birthday. Previously, Prime Minister
David Cameron announced that the personal DNA code of up to 100,000 patients
or
infections in patients will be sequenced over the next five years, "leading to
better and earlier diagnosis and personalized care."
The project will be run by Genomics England, an organization
entirely owned by the Department of Health (DH). Genomics England will manage
contracts for specialist U.K.-based companies, universities and hospitals to
supply services on sequencing, data linkage and analysis. It will set
standards
for obtaining patients' consent and also strictly manage storage of personal
data in accordance with existing NHS rules designed to securely
protect patient
information. It will have the independence and clout to drive innovation across
systems and healthcare economies.
Marking the NHS' 65th birthday with plans to make every
element of NHS treatment more tailored around individuals
' needs, Hunt said,
"The U.K. aims to become the first country to introduce this technology in its
mainstream health system—leading the global race
for better tests, better drugs
and above all, better, more personalized care to save lives. The NHS has a long
track record as a leader in medical
science advances, and it must continue to
push the boundaries by unlocking the power of DNA data. Genomics England will
provide the investment and
leadership needed to dramatically increase the use
of this technology and drive costs down."
Genomics England will be funded by the DH in the medium
term, and any surplus will be invested back into improving health. It will be
chaired by
former chair of the Medical Research Council, Sir John Chisholm.
"This project represents a great
opportunity to translate
our world-class genomic science into world leadership in genomic medicine.
Genomics England will create a dataset of
anonymized whole-genome sequences
matched with clinical data at a scale unique in the world," Chisholm claims.
Further explaining the funding setup, the Department of
Health's Peter Bramwell notes that "the £100m pledged by the
government is for
the entire Genomics England program for the next three to five years to
pump-prime the initiative as the technologies develop.
Genomics England will
have premises and staff, but will intentionally be an enabling organization,
managing contracts, licensing access and unlocking
the benefits of the
sequencing. We will discuss running costs once it is fully operational, but
they will not be disproportionate to what Genomics
England will deliver. Any
surplus would be generated by selling the data, but the data will be held
securely in the U.K., strictly protecting
confidentiality in line with existing
NHS arrangements. Researchers, both public and private, will need to apply for
a license and access the data only
via a secure data link."
The launch of Genomics England comes at a time when health
secretary
Hunt and the Tory government, led by Cameron, are under increasing
pressure for their attempt to privatize the NHS. To highlight the accelerating
pace
of NHS privatization, earlier this summer activists and health
professionals planned to descend on Farnham, in the heart of Jeremy Hunt's
South West
Surrey constituency, to canvass local people about the threat of a
privatized NHS. According to the Guardian,
"how the NHS looks at 75
depends more on the future of politics than on
economics." The paper pointed out that the ambulance service, for example, uses
10 times more private
ambulances at a cost of £4 million a year, and that
between a quarter and a half of all community services are now run by Richard
Branson's Virgin Care. To date, the government's health reforms have resulted
in £7 billion in contracts to private firms such as Virgin, private
equity-owned Care U.K., Serco and Circle, the DailyMirror reports.
Code: E081321 Back |
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