The comprehensive EU project Beyond One Million Genome plus (B1MGplus) has officially started. The new project, funded by the European Commission under the Digital Europe Programme, coordinates and supports the 1+ Million Genomes’ initiative to enable secure access to genomics data across Europe. GMS contributes to B1MGplus primarily through its work within health economics.
The B1MGplus project provides continued coordination and support to the 1+ Million Genomes’ (1+MG) initiative, which brings together 25 EU countries and Norway, and aims to enable secure access to genomics and corresponding clinical data across Europe – for better healthcare for all.
On 11-12 of March, a kick-off meeting for B1MGplus was held in Bucharest, Romania. Representing GMS were Richard Rosenquist Brandell, Director GMS, Oskar Frisell, Co-Chair of GMS Health economics and Mikaela Friedman, Co-Chair of GMS Communication & Education. They participated in the kick-off and workshops on the implementation of personalised medicine and health economics.
To support the 1+MG initiative, the B1MGplus project will focus on four areas:
- Support the preparatory work for the creation and operation of a European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (EDIC)
- Facilitate the strategic orientation of the 1+MG initiative
- Support expert work to enable the uptake of genomics for healthcare and public health purposes
- Develop data quality aspects of the 1+MG Framework
GMS represents Sweden in the B1MGplus project and, together with the Danish National Genome Center, leads the work on health economics. GMS also works in several working groups within 1+MG, for example, on the implementation of personalised medicine, user cases within rare diseases, cancer and infectious diseases, data standards, and more.
– We are very pleased to co-lead the work on health economics in B1MGplus together with the Danish National Genome Center. Health economic evaluations are key to effectively implementing personalised medicine in healthcare and international cooperation is very important, says Richard Rosenquist Brandell, Director of GMS.
The project will enable a sustainable development of the 1+MG initiative by supporting the participating countries to create a federated European genomic data infrastructure. It will be able to provide secure access to genomic and related health data and enable the development of personalised healthcare that will ultimately benefit society.
– It was a very inspiring meeting, and I made many new contacts that will be important for the work going forward. An important message from the health economics workshop is that we should start simply and flexibly to identify key components in how we demonstrate the value of whole genome sequencing, and then be able to work further with more advanced models for evaluating what this type of technology might look like, says Oskar Frisell, Health economist at the Swedish Institute for Health Economics (IHE) and Co-chair of GMS Health economics.