A national precision healthcare pilot project is to be launched this year. The National Heath Research Institutes (NHRI) will collaborate with major medical centers and biotech companies to focus on cancer treatments.  The pilot project aims to collect the gene data from 10,000 specific cancer patients in five years, and to establish a gene data bank.  The gene bank will help speed up the launches of new cancer drugs. 

A Digital Forum on Precision Cancer Treatments

The NHRI and the United Daily News are to co-organize a digital forum on precision cancer treatments in March 28.   Dr Liang Kung-Yee, President of the NHRI, will give a speech on the establishment of a precision healthcare system, which will lay the foundation for the national health databank.

Under this pilot project, the NHRI will approach international and local drug companies and work together to collect over 10, 000 patients’ gene data in 5 years. 

Target on Local Cancer Profiles

Dr Liang expressed that the pilot project will target on common cancers in Taiwan, such as lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, oral cancer, breast cancer, etc.  It is still in the planning stage.  The MOHW will later announce details about which drugs to receive higher priority in development. 

As for the reasons for establishing a gene bank for cancers, Dr Liang pointed out that Real World Data (RWD) can accelerate the launch of new drugs and the new indications of old drugs because RWD reflects the real situations better than the results of clinical trials.

The Launch of the National Pilot Project

Dr Liang continued that the UK and the US are pioneers in precision medicine. In the UK, a Genomic England project was launched in 2012, aiming to create a gene bank containing the gene data of over 1 million people.  In the US, the former US President Obama gave his support in 2015 to the development to precision medicine. 

In Taiwan, the MOHW is going to launch a pilot project for precision medicine this year.  Dr Liang expressed that the NHRI visited the US last year and had a constructive talk with Roche about the collaboration in applying the concepts of precision medicine to healthcare.

Dr Liang expressed that this is a new concept. Precision medicine can not only be used in treating diseases, but also be applied to disease prevention and follow-up care.  The RWE helps to improve the authority’s decisions, said Dr Liang

【2020-02-26 / United Daily News】