The Future Of Precision Medicine: Great Promise, Significant Challenges

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series stemming from the Fifth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review event held at Harvard Law School on Monday, January 23rd, 2017. The conference brought together leading experts to review major developments in health law over the previous year, and preview what is to come. In his 2015 State of the Union address, President Obama launched the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI), which is intended to help move medicine from the traditional “one-size-fits-all” approach where treatments are designed for the “average” patient, to one that “takes into account individual differences in people’s genes, environments, and lifestyles,” thereby personalizing treatment. According to the White House, a major goal is to “bring us closer to curing diseases like cancer and diabetes.” In December 2016, the 21st Century Cures Act was signed into law, authorizing up to $1.455 billion in funding for the initiative, spread over 10 years (although, importantly, the statute does not guarantee any of the funds, which will be subject to budget negotiations each year). Central to the PMI is the All of Us Research Program (renamed in October 2016 from the “Precision Medicine Initiative Cohort Program”), which aims to enroll 1 million or more volunteers throughout the United States. If successful, it would be one of the largest longitudinal cohorts ever developed in this country. The All of Us program will, among other things, seek to asce...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Quality 21st Century Cures Act cancer moonshot cancerr Precision Medicine Research The Health Law Year in P/Review Source Type: blogs