White House calls on Congress to fund data-driven initiative focused on individual makeup rather than a ‘one-size-fits-all’ method of care

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Barack Obama on Friday unveiled details of a major research initiative that would invest $215m in the development of medical treatments tailored to a person’s genetics, as part of a wider effort to fund science and research.

The centerpiece of the president’s Precision Medicine Initiative is a research consortium containing the health data of a million volunteers, which researchers can use to develop new medicines and treat individuals.

“The Precision Medicine Initiative will leverage advances in genomics, emerging methods for managing and analyzing large data sets while protecting privacy, and health information technology to accelerate biomedical discoveries,” the White House said.

In broadest terms, the emerging field of precision medicine – hailed by some as the next revolution in health – aims to analyze large amounts of data in order to identify ways of treating individuals based on genetic makeup.

The president’s $215m budget request to Congress includes $130m to National Institutes of Health (NIH) for development of the massive database. He will request $70m for the National Cancer Institute, a branch of the NIH, in order to better understand and identify genes that affect the risk of developing cancer, and to apply that knowledge to the development of more effective treatment.

“Most medical treatments have been designed for the ‘average patient’,” the White House said. “As a result of this ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, treatments can be very successful for some patients but not for others.”

Responding to privacy and security concerns raised over the collection of mass data, White House officials said the Department of Health and Human Services, helped by other federal agencies, would gather input from patient groups, bioethicists, privacy and civil liberties advocates and other experts.

The president introduced the initiative in his State of the Union speech, saying it would help advance progress toward curing diseases like cancer and diabetes. A medical student who benefited from precision medicine to treat his cystic fibrosis was invited to sit with Michelle Obama during the address.