In this video Bogi Eliasen, Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, discusses various issues relating to studying population genomics as well as the applications and management of person centric data. As co-initiator of the FarGen project, the first nationwide genome sequencing and implementation project, as well as author of a recently published white paper, the Nordic Way,  Bogi provides his thoughts on the wider implications of these projects from European and global healthcare perspectives. Bogi also outlines the aim of the Futureproofing Healthcare Sustainability Index as a platform to help healthcare decision makers use data from a range of healthcare issues to understand the challenges of healthcare provision across Europe.

As Europe and the world continue to battle against COVID, the customary complacency of society over future threats is clearly on display. Just 30 months ago, such a massive disruption to global lives, livelihoods and quality of life seemed unimaginable. Some remedial European Union action is now emerging, and more is proposed, including in relation to tackling “unmet medical need” (UMN). This initiative—directing attention to the future of treating disease and contemplating incentives to stimulate research and development—is welcome in principle. But the current approach being considered by EU officials merits further discussion, because it may prove counter-productive, impeding rather than promoting innovation. This paper aims to feed into these ongoing policy discussions, and rather than presenting research in the classical sense, it discusses the key elements from a multistakeholder perspective. Its central concern is over the risk that the envisaged support will fail to generate valuable new treatments if the legislation is phrased in a rigidly linear manner that does not reflect the serpentine realities of the innovation process, or if the definition placed on unmet medical need is too restrictive. It cautions that such an approach presumes that “unmet need” can be precisely and comprehensively defined in advance on the basis of the past. It cautions that such an approach can reinforce the comfortable delusion that the future is totally predictable—the delusion that left the world as easy prey to COVID. Instead, the paper urges reflection on how the legislation that will shortly enter the pipeline can be phrased so as to allow for the flourishing of a culture capable of rapid adaptation to the unexpected.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract