The Precision Medicine Initiative

Last year, $130 million was allocated to the National Institute of Health (NIH) to build a national, large-scale research participant group to study precision medicine for all diseases. This year, the first step is to build a national research group of one million or more U.S. participants.

Precision (or personalized) medicine is an emerging discipline for disease prevention and treatment that takes into account each individual’s genes, environment, and lifestyle. This approach allows the physician to tailor medical plans and treatments to the individual characteristics of each patient. It further lets physicians classify individuals into groups that may differ in their exposures to a particular disease, in the biology and/or prognosis of those diseases, or in their response to a specific treatment.

The new NIH research initiative will gain a better understanding of the biological, environmental, and behavioral influences of certain diseases on a much greater scale. The primary emphasis will be to study common diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, obesity, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, along with more rare diseases.

Ultimately, the goal of the research is to increase quality and limit costs using a data-driven, personalized approach. The future results of this study will be important to healthcare and claim professionals attempting to understand how certain occurrences and situations should be classified, managed and funded.

For a full copy of the initial report, please click here >>