Data-driven precision medicine ecosystem - stakeholder needs and opportunities

This report summarizes the results of the first phase of VTT's PreMed project. It provides an overview of the Finnish precision medicine landscape and business opportunities opened by secondary use of health related data as enabled by biobanks and other data sources. The observations are based on openly available information and interviews of key stakeholders. The report describes the Finnish infrastructure supporting secondary use and covers the existing entities (e.g. biobanks), entities currently in development (e.g. the Service Operator and Genome Center) and related national activities, most notably the FinnGen project. It is concluded that the Finnish infrastructure is well-developed and internationally competent, but there are worries among the stakeholders concerning the delays in setting up the components under development. Analysis of international developments reveals that a large number of efforts is on-going targeted at collecting genome data, supporting co-operation and improving access to data and processing tools. Although the international market potential is high, most Finnish SME's in the precision medicine domain still have difficulties in generating profitable business. The related reasons and bottlenecks are analysed and new business opportunities are analysed in the report. The potential of Artificial Intelligence is specifically addressed as a technology powered by the increased availability of health data for secondary use. The report provides an analysis of business opportunities in four areas covering new therapy development, health risk assessment and diagnostics, therapy selection and direct-to-consumer genomics. The analysis provides policies and strategies, which should be adopted to remove the main barriers. It is widely understood that successful business in data-driven precision medicine relies on networked stakeholders. In order to understand the mechanisms of the business ecosystem an initial ecosystem model has been constructed in the PreMed project. The model enables simulation of different alternative development paths for the precision medicine ecosystem. The report forms the basis for further work planned to be carried out in the PreMed project, which is scheduled to be completed by April 2020.