Kirsten Salyer, Public Engagement, +41 79 265 8773, Email kirsten.salyer@weforum.org
San Francisco, USA, 26 February 2020 – We need a global approach to diagnose and treat rare diseases, according to a new World Economic Forum paper, “Global Access for Solving Rare Disease: A Health Economics Value Framework,” released today. The paper, released ahead of Rare Disease Day and written by health economists from the UK, Australia, Canada and the US, proposes the first global framework illuminating the potential economic benefits of securely sharing genomic data for the purposes of diagnosing and treating rare disease.
There are currently 475 million people globally affected by rare disease, and only 5% of this population has a treatment. Most crucially, 80% of rare diseases result from genetic or genomic variants, meaning an individual is born with a rare disease. This results in 30% of children born with a rare disease dying before they reach their fifth birthday – often without a diagnosis. More than 450 million people – near the populations of the USA, Australia, Canada, and the UK combined – are living without a treatment or an opportunity to get better.
“We applaud the powerful patient advocacy community demanding international collaboration on data access to save lives,” said Genya Dana, Head of Precision Medicine, Shaping the Future of Health and Healthcare, World Economic Forum. “Now we show that it also makes sense economically to build out the infrastructure and the policies to support these efforts.”
By aggregating genomic and clinical data at a global scale, countries with national genomic institutes and similarly hospitals with in-house genomics institutes could come up with more answers both to diagnose currently undiagnosed or misdiagnosed people with rare disease and develop treatments. This could be done via a technical solution called a federated data system, which enables instantaneous, trustworthy access to datasets across countries or institutional locations via a decentralized architecture powered by applicational programming interfaces (APIs). Yet implementing a federated data system can be costly, about half a million US dollars.
This paper examines the incentives to establish such a federated data system, showing a return on investment could be possible across four major areas of benefit:
“There has never been a better time for international collaboration on solving rare disease,” said Arnaud Bernaert, Head of Health and Healthcare, Shaping the Future of Health and Healthcare, World Economic Forum. “The moral incentive to create a global genomic data consortium for rare disease has always been present, but now with this paper it is clear that there are multiple benefits in terms of economic incentives as well.”
The paper calls on countries to test out this proof of concept of a federated data system model in order to fully understand the benefits. The World Economic Forum is partnering with Genomics England, Australia Genomics Health Alliance, Genomics4RD, and Intermountain Precision Genomics in the UK, Australia, Canada and the US, respectively, to lead a proof of concept of such a federated data system by the summer of 2020.
The paper also includes 14 patient stories from the four countries of focus – the UK, Australia, Canada and the US. These stories speak to the lived experience of the high costs of paying for a rare disease and potential cost savings of a global data sharing approach.
What the leaders are saying
“Globally coordinated approaches are critical for counting the impact of rare diseases and creating new knowledge to informs solutions to improve the lives of people living with rare diseases,” said Gareth Baynam, Board Member of the Undiagnosed Diseases Network International and Founder of Project Y. “Addressing the needs of people living with rare diseases is a global health priority, and a human rights concern. It is also an opportunity to translate insights into health and broader social services innovation for all of us.”
“We hope that this white paper will provide the badly needed impetus and vision required to effectively and securely collect and share genomic data to diagnose and treat rare diseases,” said Mark Caulfield, FMedSci, Chief Scientist at Genomics England. “If implemented, this global, coordinated approach will build on the investments of the UK Government and NHS to increase our understanding of rare disease and accelerate our ability to generate clinical insights from genomic data. Ultimately, this will benefit all patients and families seeking precise diagnoses and effective treatments.”
“We support a global approach to data sharing to improve the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases,” said Yann Le Cam the Chief Executive Officer of EURORDIS-Rare Diseases Europe and Member of the Council of Rare Diseases International. “Our recent Rare Barometer survey on data sharing of 2,000+ rare disease patients, family members and carers shows that, nearly 100% of respondents are supportive of data-sharing initiatives to foster research and improve healthcare and diagnosis. In parallel, 80% of respondents want full or near to full control over the data they share. They want to decide who has access to their data, and how and why those people are using that data.”
“There isn't a more compassionate use of genomics than to help our most vulnerable patients,” said Lincoln Nadauld, Chief of Precision Health, Intermountain Healthcare. “We are thrilled to work with other like-minded institutions in order to help develop the growing field of genomics."
Breaking Barriers to Health Data Project
The Breaking Barriers to Health Data project aims to craft and test a scalable governance framework to support the effective and responsible use of federated data systems to advance rare disease diagnostic and treatment-related research. The first case study will focus on enabling cross-border access to rare disease genomic data between the UK, Australia, Canada and the US. The framework will subsequently be tested for applicability using different types of data and use cases and in different jurisdictions. The project will leverage federated data system models being used in other industries (telecoms and transport) and draw from existing governance frameworks for responsible sharing of health-related data. The project also aims to test the hypothesis that federated systems can provide a useful way to navigate key barriers to sharing sensitive data and reduce friction when specific communities – such as the private sector, research institutes or public institutions – want to share or transfer health data across borders to support precision medicine.
Notes to editors
Read the report here
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