Dr Naomi Hawkins participates in OECD Workshop

On 17-18 September 2019, Dr Naomi Hawkins attended “Collaborative platforms for personalized health: realizing the potential of genomics and biobanks” in Stockholm, Sweden. This OECD Workshop, organised in collaboration with Vinnova (Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems), explored the institutional arrangements and business models underlying collaborative platforms in genomics and biobanks for personalized health.

The participants included policy makers, experts in business models, intellectual property (IP), data sharing, open science, and in the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genomic innovation from 21 countries.

Dr Hawkins acted as a rapporteur for the session ‘Governance in light of international collaboration: addressing real-world issues in data sharing.’

A wave of new policy challenges, related to technological and institutional changes, for genomic platforms constituted the backdrop to the workshop. Digital technologies enable data-driven innovation in large-scale genetic and health-data bases. The implementation of novel, often AI-based technologies into collaborative initiatives in genomics and biobanks for personalised medicine has the potential to increase the efficiency to deliver more beneficial products and services to society. It has also increased the complexity of the regulatory and governance frameworks against which collaborative platforms develop. The workshop focused on questions arising from blurring boundaries between public and private innovators, disciplines, and policy makers.

Photo: Gerd Atlmann