Federal Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq

OTTAWA – Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq unveiled on January 31^st the federal government’s $67.5 million investment that aims to help Canadians get more effective treatment and make the healthcare system more sustainable through genetics-based personalized medicine.

“The potential to understand a person’s genetic makeup and the specific character of their illness in order to best determine their treatment will significantly improve the quality of life for patients and their families and may show us the way to an improved health care system and even save costs in certain circumstances,” Minister Aglukkaq said.

Personalized medicine promises the potential to transform the delivery of healthcare to patients by evolving from what the current government calls a reactive “one-size-fits-all” system towards a system of predictive, preventive and more precise care.

Areas in which personalized approaches are particularly promising include oncology, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, psychiatric disorders, diabetes and obesity, arthritis, pain, and Alzheimer’s disease. In all of these fields, and others, a personalized molecular medicine approach is expected to lead to better health outcomes, improved treatments, and a reduction in toxicity due to variable or adverse drug responses. Cancer patients, for example, would be screened to identify those for whom chemotherapy would be ineffective. In addition to saving on the costs of expensive drug treatments, the government hopes this personalized treatment would prevent a great deal of suffering, while identifying and initiating earlier treatments that could be more effective.

The funding will be divided into: Genome Canada, $40 million; the Canadian Institute of Health Research, $22.5 million; and the Cancer Stem Cell Consortium, $5 million. The funds will be given to the three research agencies once they have obtained matching funding that is least equal to that provided. Matching funding is typically derived from provincial, academic, private sector or international sources.

In a televised interview on Jan. 31^st with CTV’s Sandie Rinaldo, Minister Aglukkaq said that she hopes to see results in three to four years.

Source: Canadian Institutes of Health Research, cihr-irsc.gc.ca

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