Commercialisation of genomic research: the issue of public trust

The large investment of public funds into the Human Genome Project and related research is starting to pay off. A whole new field of precision medicine has emerged, the aim of which is to deliver personalised health care, tailored to an individual's genetic characteristics, health status and family history. Yet there are still large gaps in our knowledge of how our genomes and our physical environment affect our health and wellbeing. Much more research needs to be done, and the results of that research need to be translated to the clinic and the pharmacy in a timely fashion. The many ethical, legal and social concerns raised by this research effort are well. recognised, and there has been an extensive body of policy and academic analysis of appropriate regulatory responses.

In this chapter, the inevitability of some form of commercial involvement in the translation of genomic research into the clinic and the pharmacy is recognised and accepted. The key question that is explored in this chapter is how this impacts on public trust and what can be done to ameliorate this impact.