2015年3月27日讯 /生物谷BIOON/--根据英国国家统计局的报告显示，英国生物医药产业投入在研发和生产方面的资金已经从2011年的49亿英镑（约合75亿美元）萎缩至2013年的41亿英镑，降幅高达17%之多。这一问题也已经引起了英国政府的高度重视。
不过，随着英国政府推出的基因组计划的提出，众多生物医药巨头纷纷将目光再次聚焦到了英伦三岛上。根据计划，英国政府将测定超过10万名英格兰人的基因组信息，以期找到开发肿瘤药物和罕见病药物的新方法。为了顺利完成这一庞大的计划，英国卫生部下属的Genomics England表示将联合世界上多家生物医药巨头。而这一团队包括了葛兰素史克、阿斯利康、艾伯维、武田药业以及Biogen等，可谓是生物医药界的超豪华阵容。
该项目的负责人Genomics England的执行主席John Chisholm表示，现在英国上下共有超过4000名研究人员为完成这一计划而努力，目前研究人员已经获得了超过3000组基因组信息。John Chisholm希望能够通过收集到的这些数据找出新的诊断方法和治疗靶点。
而这一计划也收到了众多医药企业巨头的高度评价。葛兰素史克公司的执行副总裁Lon Cardon表示，通过参与这一计划，科学家们将能够更透彻的认识一些疾病的致病机理。
而英国政府推出这一计划也正好契合了当今基因组学高速发展的背景。今年早些时候，美国总统奥巴马也宣布了一项名为精密医学的类似研究计划，旨在推动从基因层面认识疾病的发生、发展机理。该计划耗资超过2亿美元。可以想见，在不久将来有更多的国家将会涌入这一研究领域。中国作为近两年生物医药产业崛起的新力量又将在这里扮演怎样的角色？
详细英文报道：
A group of the world's leading drugmakers have joined the U.K.'s ambitious initiative to sequence the genomes of 100,000 Britons, mining the data with hopes of finding new pathways to treat cancer and rare diseases.
Under a yearlong project, the researchers at Genomics England are bringing in some industry heavyweights to pore over a portion of the genetic data they've gathered, hoping to develop a replicable model for effectively and securely collaborating in the future. Dubbed the Genomics Expert Network for Enterprises (GENE) Consortium, the group includes GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK), Roche ($RHHBY), AstraZeneca ($AZN), Biogen ($BIIB), AbbVie ($ABBV) and others.
Genomics England has thus far sequenced about 3,000 genomes toward its goal, and it's looping in industry at the ground floor in hopes of amplifying the project's returns. The plan, Executive Chairman John Chisholm said, is to spotlight new diagnostic avenues and therapeutic targets by taking a deep dive into the data on NHS patients, uniting the more than 4,000 U.K. researchers involved in the project with private-sector experts.
For the 10 early adopters, joining forces with Genomics England provides both a chance to shape the future of drug discovery and a near-term boon for R&D, GSK Senior Vice President Lon Cardon said.
"This project with Genomics England provides us with enormous opportunity to use genetic information to understand the causes of human disease," Cardon said in a statement. "This allows us to select better starting points for our work and we believe this could greatly improve our success rate in discovering new medicines."
The group also includes Takeda, Alexion Pharmaceuticals ($ALXN), Helomics,UCB and 2014 Fierce 15 honoree Dimension Therapeutics.
The U.K. effort is part of a global trend in collaborative genomics. This week, Amgen's ($AMGN) deCODE Genetics unveiled the results of a sweeping effort tosequence the genomes of thousands of Icelanders, and Regeneron ($REGN) is at work on a similar project. President Barack Obama turned heads around biopharma earlier this year with the announcement of the Precision Medicine Initiative, requesting an initial $215 million to kick-start a mass sequencing effort in the U.S.