In June 2000, the
first draft of the human genome was completed. The contribution of France was
3% of the total. That was little, but still more than the contribution of any other country
except the United States and the UK. At the time, all of the sequencing in France was done
by its national sequencing centre, the Genoscope near
Paris.
According to Balzac, political liberty, the peace of a nation, and science itself are gifts for which fate demands a heavy tax in blood |
Since then, genomics has become even less of a national priority, and other countries have overtaken France. In terms of sequencing infrastructure, France lags behind its European peers Germany and the UK. According to Omics Maps, there are 38 sequencing machines in France, compared to Germany's 135 and the UK's 138.
There are some signs
that this could change. Last year, French genomics, including
the Genoscope sequencing centre, received a funding boost of €60m ($77m) as a
part of a €260m package
to promote research infrastructure. It is too early to tell
whether this has been a one-off, or whether there is a long-term commitment by
French policymakers to invest more in genomics. Doing a quick press search, I could
not find any indication what the views of France's new minister of Higher Education and Research
on genomics are.
How about the
private sector? France has biotech giants such as Biomérieux and Eurofins that are
also involved in sequencing. However, the
core business of both companies is not genomics. That is unlikely to change: In a recent interview,
Eurofins senior vice president Bruno Poddevin expressed the opinion that it
will take at least another 10 years until Sanger sequencing is replaced by next
generation sequencing (NGS), and that until then, NGS will not be a priority
for his company.
Overall, it seems
that sequencing is not a priority for either the public or the private sector
in France. If you have any comments that confirm or refute this view, please share them below. Please note that I will be travelling until the 19th of June and that I will not be able to reply to your messages until then.