During a State of the Union speech in January this year President Barack Obama showed interest in the precision medicine, which can help treat medical conditions such as cancer and diabetes. Now, President Obama has included Precision Medicine Initiative in the proposed budget for fiscal 2016.
Precision medicine proposes the customization of healthcare tailored for an individual person, which will help healthcare providers to give optimum treatment suited to a patient. In the latest budget, President Obama has proposed a funding of $215 million for the launch of the Precision Medicine Initiative.
"Launched with a $215 million investment in the President's 2016 Budget, the Precision Medicine Initiative will pioneer a new model of patient-powered research that promises to accelerate biomedical discoveries and provide clinicians with new tools, knowledge, and therapies to select which treatments will work best for which patients," per a White House press release.
From the total budget of $215 million, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is estimated to receive $130 million for creating a program at a national level, which will track data of about 1 million donors for their DNA sequencing.
The National Cancer Institute will receive $70 million for identifying the genetic drivers of cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will get $10 million for developing innovative regulatory structures for dealing with the approval of personalized drugs. The balance $5 million will go to the National Coordinator for helping in the procurement of the necessary information technology systems to co-operate.
NIH suggests that the immediate goal of the Precision Medicine Initiative will be to considerably expand research in cancer genomics, which will help to develop prevention and treatment successes for more cancers. The latest health initiative will back clinical trials with pharmaceutical companies.
NIH reveals that the long-term goal of Precision Medicine Initiative is to build a broad scientific information base, which will allow precision medicine implementation on a bigger scale.
"The goal is to set the foundation for a new way of doing research that fosters open, responsible data sharing with the highest regard to patient privacy, and that puts engaged participants at the center," per NIH.
The precision medicine has the potential to improve upon the care for patients. A coordinated effort between public and private sectors is needed to make the initiative a success, which can help in saving the lives of thousands of people.
