COLUMBUS, Ohio – In what will result in more precise, cost-effective and higher quality of health care for patients, The Ohio State University Medical Center is collaborating with Seattle’s Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) to revolutionize medicine and transform healthcare delivery. This historic partnership, which will establish the new innovation consortium, P4 Medicine Institute (P4MI), was recently approved by The Ohio State University Board of Trustees.
Co-founded by ISB and Ohio State’s Medical Center, P4MI is the world’s only organization dedicated to accelerating the emergence and adoption of health care that is predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory.
“The P4 Medicine Institute will lead the way in bringing P4 medicine to patients - starting in the very near future," stated Dr. Leroy Hood, ISB co-founder and president, whose discoveries have permanently changed the course of biology and revolutionized the understanding of genetics, life and human health.
"P4MI brings together two complementary strategic partners – Ohio State and the Institute for Systems Biology. ISB is developing the systems approaches and pioneering technologies that will in the future let us gather billions of data points for each patient. Ohio State will bring these innovations to patients through pioneering pilot projects (e.g. wellness) that will demonstrate the power of P4 Medicine."
Ohio State delivered on its commitment to more personalized health care in 2006 when it developed and launched a pilot test called “Your Plan for Health”, a strategic partnership of the Medical Center, Ohio State’s Office of Human Resources and The Ohio State University Health Plan, Inc. The program was created to improve overall health of faculty and staff through timely preventive care and wellness programs at the individual level, and to gain control over rapidly rising health care costs, while preserving quality, continuity, and affordability of health care for the university and its faculty and staff.
P4 Medicine will result in health care that predicts and prevents illness, focuses on health and wellness, and considers the consumer as the central figure in care. Together, Ohio State and ISB will combine systems biology research and clinical delivery resources to advance health services for patients with an innovative and proactive approach to disease prevention and maintenance of health and wellness. This complementary blend of leading-edge science, technology innovation, clinical research, healthcare delivery expertise, and medical access to patients provides a unique opportunity to catalyze the transformation of medicine from its current reactive mode to a proactive P4 mode.
“Partnerships like this reinforce The Ohio State University Medical Center’s commitment to improve people’s lives through personalized health care,” says Dr. Steven G. Gabbe, CEO of the Medical Center. “Only when patients are truly engaged to be part of their health care transformation, can we significantly improve outcomes and cost-effectiveness.”
Utilizing an individual’s genomic, protein metabolic and molecular diagnostic information, P4 Medicine will provide new ways to maintain health and quantify wellness, diagnose illness, and predict disease.
"By leveraging an individual’s genomic and molecular signature, P4 Medicine transitions care away from the current one-size-fits all approach and enables highly personalized care," stated Dr. Fred Lee, P4MI executive director. "By being highly effective and individualized, P4 Medicine will be engaging, which will lead to consumers to actively own and participate in their healthcare decisions."
P4 Medicine utilizes advances in genomics and molecular diagnostics discoveries to provide predictive information that is necessary to tailor disease management approaches for each individual. Therapeutics and health management tools will be developed to help prevent disease instead of merely treating the symptoms. Medicine of the future will also be participatory. Patients will have access to a single portal that will electronically store their medical records and genetic profiles and tools that will analyze these data to guide them to precise strategies to promote wellness.
“We are very excited for this unique opportunity to partner with the Institute for Systems Biology to launch this new P4 Medicine Institute, which will help us further move toward our goal of transforming disease-based care of today to wellness-based care of the future,” says Dr. Clay Marsh, executive director of Ohio State’s Center for Personalized Health Care. “Together, we are well positioned to develop more specific, effective and efficient treatments for patients with disease and to create tools that define wellness at a deep molecular level, empowering individuals to take an active role in their health care.”
P4MI is honored to have such a prestigious partner as Ohio State as a founding member, according to Hood. “Through Ohio State’s deep commitment to realize the vision of P4 Medicine, they are uniquely positioned to become the academic medical center that leads the State of Ohio, the nation, and the world in creating the future of healthcare today," stated Dr. Hood.
According to Marsh, in 2009, the overall cost of health care in the U.S. totaled $2.5 trillion, with 75 to 90 percent of these dollars spent managing and treating preventable chronic illnesses.
The Ohio State University Medical Center was the first major public academic medical center to join the Personalized Medicine Coalition – a Washington, D. C.-based independent, non-profit group that works to advance the understanding and adoption of personalized medicine. As Ohio’s preeminent comprehensive teaching and research university, and one of the nation’s largest, The Ohio State University has a profound impact on its students, the economy, and the quality of life in Ohio and beyond by offering broad, deep, and high-quality educational opportunities, conducting research that advances knowledge and benefits society, and fulfilling its land-grant mission of outreach and public service. Ohio State is home to one of the most comprehensive health sciences campuses in the United States, providing an exceptional facilitating condition for transdisciplinary collaboration in personalized medicine.
The Ohio State University’s Center for Personalized Health Care (CPHC), created in 2005, facilitates and advocates for the creation and practice of healthcare methods based on an individual’s genetic, environmental, behavioral and cultural factors. What results is a tailored approach to wellness, disease prevention and, when required, health care. Personalized health care overarches all Ohio State University Medical Center initiatives.
The CPHC (www.cphc.osu.edu) serves as an advocate and facilitator of research, education, prevention and treatments designed to meet patients’ individual needs. Its missions are to create a pipeline for innovation and accelerate the application and dissemination of discovery to realize the promise of personalized health care and advocate for PHC locally, nationally and internationally.
The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) is an internationally renowned, non-profit research institute headquartered in Seattle and dedicated to the study and application of systems biology. Co-founded by Leroy Hood, ISB seeks to unravel the mysteries of human biology and identify strategies for predicting and preventing diseases such as cancer, diabetes and AIDS. ISB's systems approach integrates biology, computation and technological development, enabling scientists to analyze all elements in a biological system rather than one gene or protein at a time. Founded in 2000, the Institute has grown to 13 faculty and more than 300 staff members; an annual budget of nearly $50 million; and an extensive network of academic and industrial partners. In 2009, ISB was recognized in the SCImago Report, because its research papers had the highest scientific impact in the United States and the third highest in the world. The report analyzed the impact of scientific papers published by 2200 institutions in 84 countries. For more information about ISB, visit www.systemsbiology.org.
The P4 Medicine Institute (P4MI) is a Seattle based non-profit innovation consortium established in 2010 to lead the transformation of healthcare from a reactive system to one that predicts and prevents disease, tailors diagnosis and therapy to the individual consumer and engages patients in the active pursuit of a quantified understanding of wellness; i.e. one that is predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory (P4). The unique approach of P4MI will leverage the technical infrastructure required to power healthcare of the future -- systems biology, informatics, clinical research, care delivery, provider engagement, and also advocate for policies that accelerate discovery, lower costs, improve health quality and address the societal and legal implications of P4 Medicine. The term "P4 Medicine" was coined in 2003 by biotechnology visionary Dr. Leroy Hood, co-founder and president of the Institute for Systems Biology. For more information about P4MI, visit www.p4mi.org.
Click here for a high-resolution photo of Dr. GabbeClick here for a high-resolution photo of Dr. MarshClick here for a high-resolution photo of Dr. HoodClick here for a high-resolution photo of Dr. Lee###
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Sherri L. Kirk
Medical Center Public Affairs and Media Relations
614-293-3737
Sherri.Kirk@osumc.edu