Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Roadmap for a precision-medicine initiative in the Nordic region

The Nordic region, comprising primarily Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, has many of the necessary characteristics for being at the forefront of genome-based precision medicine. These include egalitarian and universal healthcare, expertly curated patient and population registries, biobanks, large population-based prospective cohorts linked to registries and biobanks, and a widely embraced sense of social responsibility that motivates public engagement in biomedical research. However, genome-based precision medicine can be achieved only through coordinated action involving all actors in the healthcare sector. Now is an opportune time to organize scientists in the Nordic region, together with other stakeholders including patient representatives, governments, pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions and funding agencies, to initiate a Nordic Precision Medicine Initiative. We present a roadmap for how this organization can be created. The Initiative should facilitate research, clinical trials and knowledge transfer to meet regional and global health challenges.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: The Nordic countries, a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the North and Norwegian Seas.

References

  1. National Research Council (US) Committee on A Framework for Developing a New Taxonomy of Disease. Toward Precision Medicine: Building a Knowledge Network for Biomedical Research and a New Taxonomy of Disease (National Academies Press, 2011).

  2. Collins, F. S., Green, E. D., Guttmacher, A. E. & Guyer, M. S. Nature 422, 835–847 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Cross-Disorder Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. et al. Nat. Genet. 45, 984–994 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. Nature 511, 421–427 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Khera, A. V. et al. N. Engl. J. Med. 375, 2349–2358 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Gudbjartsson, D. F. et al. Nat. Genet. 47, 435–444 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Marouli, E. et al. Nature 542, 186–190 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Lek, M. et al. Nature 536, 285–291 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Acuna-Hidalgo, R., Veltman, J. A. & Hoischen, A. Genome Biol. 17, 241 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Kong, A. et al. Nature 488, 471–475 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Ebbesen, M., Sundby, A., Pedersen, F. S. & Andersen, S. J. Clin. Res. Bioeth. 6, 244 (2015).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Anonymous. Nat. Genet. 47, 425 (2015).

  13. Maretty, L. et al. Nature 548, 87–91 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Flannick, J. et al. Nat. Genet. 46, 357–363 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Fuchsberger, C. et al. Nature 536, 41–47 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Novembre, J. et al. Nature 456, 98–101 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Palo, J. U., Ulmanen, I., Lukka, M., Ellonen, P. & Sajantila, A. Eur. J. Hum. Genet. 17, 1336–1346 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Lao, O. et al. Curr. Biol. 18, 1241–1248 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Nordic Council of Ministers. Nordic Statistical Yearbook 2014 Vol. 52 (ed. Haagensen, K.M.) 7–135 (Nord, 2014).

  20. Wooldridge, A. Northern lights. Special report: the Nordic countries. The Economist (2 February 2013).

  21. Thorlacius, S. et al. Nat. Genet. 13, 117–119 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Thorlacius, S. et al. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 60, 1079–1084 (1997).

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank the Banbury Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for organizing and hosting the meeting ‘Studying the Genomic Variation that Underlies Health and Disease: The Unique Contribution of the Nordic Health Systems’ at the Banbury Center, 16–19 February, 2016. We are grateful to C. E. Jaquish, G. Tybring and D. Høybråten for helpful discussions. We acknowledge funding from the Norwegian Research Council (223273 to O.A.A.) and NordForsk (to P.W.F.). Work related to this paper conducted by P.W.F. was supported by the Swedish Research Council and ERC-2015-CoG_NASCENT_681742. P.R.N. was supported by grants from the European Research Council (AdG 293574), the Research Council of Norway (240413), Helse Vest (PERSON-MED-DIA), Bergen Research Foundation and Stiftelsen Kristian Gerhard Jebsen (Center for Diabetes Research). A.D.B. was supported by a grant from the Novo Nordisk Fonden.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

P.R.N., P.W.F., A.D.B., A.P., C.S. and K.S. wrote the manuscript, which was edited by O.A.A., S.B., J.D., T.E., N.F., L.G., H.H., D.M.H., E.H., K.H., J.K., G.P.K., M.M., A.M., P.B.M., J.P., A.P., W.R., H.S., N.O.S., P.F.S., U.T., M.V., E.V. and T.W.; P.R.N., O.A.A., S.B., A.D.B., J.D., T.E., P.W.F., N.F., L.G., H.H., D.M.H., E.H., K.H., A.J., J.K., G.P.K., M.M., A.M., P.B.M., J.P., A.P., W.R., H.S., N.O.S., P.F.S., U.T., M.V., E.V., T.W., C.S. and K.S. conceived the project.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pål Rasmus Njølstad.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

H.S., U.T. and K.S. are employed by deCODE Genetics/Amgen, Inc. The other authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figures 1 and 2, Supplementary Tables 1 and 2, and Supplementary Note

Reporting Summary

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Njølstad, P.R., Andreassen, O.A., Brunak, S. et al. Roadmap for a precision-medicine initiative in the Nordic region. Nat Genet 51, 924–930 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-019-0391-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-019-0391-1

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.

Get what matters in translational research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Translational Research