Mission of AMED: Global data sharing and medical R&D

Abstract

In April 2015, AMED was started to fast-track medical R&D and to improve a quality of life for people. Among a diversity of different medical researches, AMED has chosen a field of rare and undiagnosed diseases to tackle with a number of obstacles including rigid and inflexible funding systems and "Balkanization" of mindsets among academia and researchers. We launched "Initiative for Rare and Undiagnosed Diseases (IRUD)" as the first leading project. It aims to spread a concept of sharing clinical data, and "microattribution" that should be recognized by all project leaders. AMED has also joined in International Rare Disease Consortium (IRDiRC) to share many experiences in rare disease researches which were accumulated over 40 years in Japan. Solving Balkanization among different sectors which participate in medical R&D gives a clue to fast-track implementation of outcomes among all other fields of medical researches. AMED has started up a new project for supporting development of "Medical Arts" which includes developing new medical technology including genome editing and gene therapies, and software for medical support that might contribute to improving medical safety and cost performance. I would present an overview of our missions and vision for medical innovations, and introduce our novel projects including IRUD and medical ICT networks.