At a recent National Institutes of Health ("NIH") workshop, the agency announced that an advisory panel will be formed to perform the million-subject research cohort that is an essential part of the president's Precision Medicine Initiative. The initiative is intended to foster development of a new model of health care delivery that targets treatments to patient subgroups identified by their genetic makeup and other characteristics. It was announced during the January 20 State of the Union address, when the president requested significant funds as a part of his fiscal year 2016 budget. To that end, as part of NIH's implementation of the initiative, the agency intends to create "a cohort of unprecedented scale" that will help researchers better understand all the factors that play out in health and disease more efficiently and implement ways to improve health outcomes, NIH Director Francis S. Collins stated during a press conference held at the workshop.
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