Researchers enthusiastic over Obama's new $215m precision medicine initiative
In what was largely a pep rally for science, President Obama on Jan. 30 unveiled his $215m precision medicine initiative before a crowd of industry, government and academic scientists and congressmen.
Among those in attendance at the White House event was Mark Rubin, director of Weill Cornell's Institute for Precision Medicine and Homer T. Hirst III Professor of Oncology in Pathology, who later spoke to Outsourcing-Pharma.com about the president's commitment to fund research and new approaches to enhance the process.
"The concept that the FDA will come up with more rigorous means to understand sequencing assays -- I'm happy that this is an important activity, and it shouldn't get lumped into the same category of getting an approval for a pacemeaker," Rubin said.
As Rubin noted in this report: "It was a moving presentation, because he spoke very articulately about precision medicine. The plan he outlined is an almost perfect reflection of what we've worked hard to develop here at Weill Cornell, which is really nice because not only was he thinking about the importance of using novel technologies and next-generation sequencing, but he also really wants to integrate this into patient care."
