Report of the Study Group on Utilization of Big Data in the Medical and Health Fields vol.1
Masami Morita (Senior Researcher, Pharmaceutical and Industrial Policy Research Institute)
Masashi Suzuki (Senior Researcher, Pharmaceuticals and Industrial Policy Research Institute)
(Published July 2016)
In the pharmaceutical industry, the utilization of big data in the medical health field is attracting attention as a future paradigm shift and direction in medicine and drug discovery in the near future. Therefore, with the aim of speculating on how the future of medicine and medical research will change with the utilization of big data in the medical health field, and summarizing how these changes will specifically change the concept of disease, diagnosis and treatment, and drug discovery and other activities of pharmaceutical companies, the Policy Research Institute has developed "Big Data in the Medical Health Field. The Policy Research Institute decided to conduct a "research study to explore how big data in the medical and health fields can be used, the challenges involved, and the solutions to be found.
In conducting this policy research, since the scope of the theme is wide-ranging and there is active movement within and outside of the pharmaceutical industry, a "Study Group on Utilization of Big Data in the Medical and Health Fields" was established within the Policy Research Institute, and cooperative researchers were invited from related committees within the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Japan (PMAJ), as well as from outside the PMAJ, including observers from IT-related companies. The group also invited observers from outside the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Japan (PMAJ), including IT-related companies, to participate in the research and study. To complement the research and study and to promote understanding, regular study sessions were also held with expert academics from outside the association.
The central theme of the study group focused on big data linked to new medical care and new drug discovery. In other words, the main theme of the society is the use of big data, such as clinical information from electronic medical records and receipts and omics (comprehensive biomolecular information) information centering on genomes, in medical treatment, medical research, and drug discovery by linking such information.
In the first year of the project, we will compare Japan's movement with the advanced situation in the U.S. and other countries where genomic big data is being incorporated into medical practice, and will also discuss the possibility of using clinical genome/omics data in actual clinical practice, which is still only partially implemented at present but is expected to come in the near future, to promote the development of precision medicine and the subdivision of disease classifications. We have been studying how the acquisition and utilization of clinical genome/omics data in actual clinical practice, which is still only partially practiced at present, will lead to advances in precision medicine, segmentation of disease classification, utilization of artificial intelligence (AI), and changes in drug discovery methods in the near future.
In this report, we report on these issues, as well as discuss issues related to the development of the infrastructure in Japan and expectations for pharmaceutical companies.