Partnership for Personalized Medicine

Category: Research, Testing, & Medical Laboratories (including CROs)

Two Arizona-based philanthropic organizations have committed $45 million to fund an innovative initiative to develop personalized molecular diagnostics. The ability to diagnose and treat disease based on every person's unique physiological makeup is critical to enabling physicians to improve health outcomes while at the same time reducing medical costs.

Under the Partnership for Personalized Medicine, The Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust has committed $35 million and the Flinn Foundation has granted $10 million to bring together a wide range of resources to advance a global personalized medicine initiative.

World-renowned scientist Dr. Lee Hartwell, 2001 Nobel laureate and director of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has been recruited to lead this effort. The Hutchinson Center, based in Seattle, is a leader in using molecular diagnostics for the early detection and clinical management of cancer and other diseases. In addition to his current position as president and director of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, he will chair the Partnership executive committee, which includes Dr. George Poste, director of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, and Dr. Jeffrey Trent, president and scientific director of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).