In the United Kingdom,
a project to sequence 100,000 whole genomes
is under way. Saudi Arabia has started another 100,000 genome sequencing project. And a few days ago, bioentrepreneur Craig Venter
announced a new company called Human Longevity,
which is going to initially sequence 40,000 genomes, followed by hundreds of
thousands later. Most likely, additional projects on a similar scale will be
kicked off over the next months and years.
All this sequencing is not going to be cheap. For example, the British government has put aside £100 million
(around $170 million) for its project. How can these costs
be justified to taxpayers and investors?
One reason
for government-funded projects like the one in Saudi Arabia and the UK is that they are going to directly benefit the sequenced patients. The other and
probably more significant reason is that the resulting data will impact the development of new cures.
Genetic variants
protecting against common diseases such as Alzheimer's
and diabetes
have already been discovered. Any drug that mimics the effect of those
variants would be likely to also protect against the disease whilst at the same time being safe. The caveat is that
rare protective variants can only be detected
by studies involving tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Hence the need
for sequencing-megaprojects.
Given the potential
impact on drug discovery, it may seem puzzling that the initiative comes from
governments and startups, rather than from established pharmaceutical companies,
whose core competency is, after all, drug discovery.This is probably due to both the relatively conservative nature of most pharmaceutical companies, as well as the so far unproven nature of the approach.