Genomic Medicine Alliance

Q - I am a post-doctoral fellow working in Singapore. Am I eligible to join the Genomic Medicine Alliance?
A - The Genomic Medicine Alliance invites scientists from all over the world working in any area of Genomic Medicine to join.

Q - Do I have to pay any fees to join the Genomic Medicine Alliance?
A - Membership to the Genomic Medicine Alliance is free-of-charge.

Q - I am a post-graduate student in Romania interested to pursue my career in a center of excellence abroad. What are the benefits by joining the Alliance?
A - The Genomic Medicine Alliance consists of a wide membership basis from graduate students to senior faculty members, healthcare professionals working in the biotech sector and regulators. By joining the Alliance you can be informed about various training opportunities in collaborating laboratories and Institutes, such as short-term visits, new training positions (e.g. PhD, post-doc, etc), job announcements, and so on. Also, you’ll be informed about educational activities and scientific meetings organized by members of the Alliance.

Q - My research interests are in the area of Pharmacogenomics and I am interested to engage into a collaborative project regarding ethics.
A - By joining the Genomic Medicine Alliance, you’ll become a member of a multinational project involving genethics. This would open new collaboration opportunities for your group with other fellow researchers from other countries, which would in turn allow possibly new funding opportunities and submission of joint grant applications.

Economic analysis allows healthcare decision makers to make resource allocation decisions, by performing cost-benefit analysis of the various interventions. Such analyses are important in the area of pharmacogenomics. It is expected that pharmacogenomics is most likely cost-effective, since it reduces the incidence of adverse drug reactions, which can reciprocally reduce healthcare expenditure at the national level.

This working group is currently evaluating the impact of pharmacogenomic testing in reducing the healthcare costs of anticoagulation therapy and treatment for nicotine addiction, while these projects will soon be expanded in various healthcare systems to assess whether pharmacogenomics can indeed reduce the overall costs of these treatment modalities.

References:

Snyder SR, et al. (2014). Economic evaluation of pharmacogenomics: a value-based approach to pragmatic decision making in the face of complexity. Public Health Genomics 17(5-6): 256-264.  

Vozikis A, et al. (2016). Test Pricing and Reimbursement in Genomic Medicine: Towards a General Strategy. Public Health Genomics 19(6): 352-363.  

Please fill in your personal details to activate your membership to the Genomic Medicine Alliance. Membership is FREE-OF-CHARGE.

Rare Diseases and Drug Outcomes

Rare diseases (RD) are more than 7.000; whilst individual conditions can be very infrequent, RD overall affect millions of citizens  at global level, and are considered as a whole a significant issue. RD are not a neglected topic anymore. Several targeted actions at international, European and national level, have tackled both public health and research aspects in the last decade.

However, a lot remain to be performed mainly at diagnostic and treatment level. In particular, about 30% of patients are still undiagnosed; moreover, only symptomatic therapy is  still available for the majority of persons with RD.

The Rare Diseases Working Group (WG) will focus on:

(a) Rare undiagnosed diseases

(b) Rare phenotypes within rare conditions

(c) Rare pharmacogenomic-related adverse drug reactions

The WG will work in close collaboration with other scientific bodies (IRDiRC, ICORD) and institutions (RD at NCATS, UDP at NIH, ISS) active in the field of Rare Diseases.

The WG will also steer the development of research on RD in developing countries, by transferring and sharing scientific expertise, models and best practices as well as by seeking contacts with Universities, scientific associations, institutions and patient organizations.

Selected links:

http://www.irdirc.org

http://icord.se

http://www.iss.it/cnmr

http://www.ncats.nih.gov

http://rarediseases.info.nih.gov

http://ec.europa.eu/health/rare_diseases/portal/index_en.htm

http://www.rarediseases.info.nih.gov/research/pages/27/undiagnosed-diseases-program