Roadmap for a precision-medicine initiative in the Nordic region

Abstract

The Nordic region, comprised here primarily of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, has many of the characteristics necessary to lead the world in genome-based precision medicine. These include egalitarian and universal health-care, expertly-curated patient and population registries, biobanks, large population-based prospective cohorts linked to registries and biobanks, and a widely embraced sense of social responsibility that has motivated public engagement in biomedical research. Now is an opportune time to organize scientists in the Nordic region, together with other stakeholders such as patient representatives, governments, pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, and funding agencies, to initiate a Nordic Precision Medicine Initiative. We present a roadmap for how this can be done. The Initiative will facilitate research, clinical trials, and knowledge transfer to meet many regional and global health challenges.