Following up a workshop earlier in the year, the Centre for Law, Medicine and Life Sciences (Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge) together with the University’s Centre for Science and Policy published this week a report on the debates, policy frameworks and recommendations for further research discussed at that meeting.
Since the sequencing of the human genome, a key goal has been to make personalised medicine an everyday reality. Research that recognises a correlation between genetic make-up and a future health outcome is not enough. Considerably more research is necessary to understand how genes, drugs and other environmental factors work together, and how they work in particular individuals. Only then will we have enough knowledge for genomic medicine to be useful in a clinical setting. An important and complex policy issue is whether intellectual property policies are working effectively to support the achievement of this bold objective.
To discuss and develop a policy path for these issues, the Centre for Law, Medicine and Life Sciences and the Centre for Science and Policy (both University of Cambridge) organized an expert workshop, which was held earlier this year at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Opening the event, Sir John Chisholm (Executive Chair, Genomics England) said:
“Genomic medicine will transform humanity in the 21st century. But quite where it is going, and how it will get there, is relatively unimaginable.”
The Report, we hope, is a step in the right direction.