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Thoas Fioretos

Thoas Fioretos

Research team manager

Thoas Fioretos

Building a precision medicine infrastructure at a national level: The Swedish experience

Author

  • Anders Edsjö
  • Anna Lindstrand
  • David Gisselsson Nord
  • Paula Orvelid-Mölling
  • Mikaela Friedman
  • Lucia Cavelier
  • Maria Johansson
  • Hans Ehrencrona
  • Therese Fagerqvist
  • Tobias Strid
  • Lovisa Lovmar
  • Bo Jacobsson
  • Åsa Johansson
  • Lars Engstrand
  • Craig E. Wheelock
  • Per Sikora
  • Valtteri Wirta
  • Thoas Fioretos
  • Richard Rosenquist
Show all

Summary, in English

Precision medicine has the potential to transform healthcare by moving from one-size-fits-all to personalised treatment and care. This transition has been greatly facilitated through new high-throughput sequencing technologies that can provide the unique molecular profile of each individual patient, along with the rapid development of targeted therapies directed to the Achilles heels of each disease. To implement precision medicine approaches in healthcare, many countries have adopted national strategies and initiated genomic/precision medicine initiatives to provide equal access to all citizens. In other countries, such as Sweden, this has proven more difficult due to regionally organised healthcare. Using a bottom-up approach, key stakeholders from academia, healthcare, industry and patient organisations joined forces and formed Genomic Medicine Sweden (GMS), a national infrastructure for the implementation of precision medicine across the country. To achieve this, Genomic Medicine Centres have been established to provide regionally distributed genomic services, and a national informatics infrastructure has been built to allow secure data handling and sharing. GMS has a broad scope focusing on rare diseases, cancer, pharmacogenomics, infectious diseases and complex diseases, while also providing expertise in informatics, ethical and legal issues, health economy, industry collaboration and education. In this review, we summarise our experience in building a national infrastructure for precision medicine. We also provide key examples how precision medicine already has been successfully implemented within our focus areas. Finally, we bring up challenges and opportunities associated with precision medicine implementation, the importance of international collaboration, as well as the future perspective in the field of precision medicine.

Department/s

  • Pathology, Lund
  • LUCC: Lund University Cancer Centre
  • Pathways of cancer cell evolution
  • Cooperation office
  • Division of Clinical Genetics
  • LTH Profile Area: Engineering Health
  • Translational Genomic and Functional Studies of Leukemia

Publishing year

2023-02-27

Language

English

Publication/Series

Cambridge Prisms: Precision Medicine

Volume

1

Document type

Journal article review

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Topic

  • Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy

Status

Published

Research group

  • Pathways of cancer cell evolution
  • Translational Genomic and Functional Studies of Leukemia

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2752-6143