The FinnGen project was launched in 2017 with the aim of collecting biological samples from 500,000 participants in

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

over six years with the aim of improving health through genetic research. This is about 10% of the population. It is hoped that it will be a springboard for better diagnostics and new therapies. It is the key to Finland's Health Sector Growth Strategy for Research and Innovation Activities. __TOC__

Activity

It is a

public–private partnership A public–private partnership (PPP, 3P, or P3) is a long-term arrangement between a government and private sectors, private sector institutions.Hodge, G. A and Greve, C. (2007), Public–Private Partnerships: An International Performance Revie ...

between Finnish universities, the National Institute for Health and Welfare, the Finnish Red Cross Blood Service, the biobanks, which are mostly owned by independent hospital districts,

hospitals A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergency ...

, and

pharmaceutical companies The pharmaceutical industry is a Medicine, medical industry that discovers, develops, produces, and markets pharmaceutical goods such as medications and medical devices. Medications are then administered to (or Self-medicate, self-administered b ...

including

Abbvie AbbVie Inc. is an American pharmaceutical company headquartered in North Chicago, Illinois. It is ranked sixth on the list of largest biomedical companies by revenue. In 2023, the company's seat in Forbes Global 2000 was 74, and rank 89 on the ...

AstraZeneca AstraZeneca plc () (AZ) is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, UK. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas includi ...

Biogen Biogen Inc. is an American multinational biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States specializing in the discovery, development, and delivery of the treatment of neurological diseases to patients worldwide. Biogen ope ...

Celgene Celgene Corporation, headquartered in Summit, New Jersey, was a pharmaceutical company that produced cancer and immunology drugs. Its primary products were Revlimid (lenalidomide), which is used in the treatment of multiple myeloma (63% of 2018 r ...

Genentech Genentech, Inc. is an American biotechnology corporation headquartered in South San Francisco, California. It operates as an independent subsidiary of holding company Roche. Genentech Research and Early Development operates as an independent cent ...

, GSK, Janssen, Maze Therapeutics, Merck,

Novartis Novartis AG is a Swiss multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical company, pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and was the eighth largest by re ...

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered at The Spiral (New York City), The Spiral in Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 184 ...

, and

Sanofi Sanofi S.A. is a French Multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and healthcare company headquartered in Paris, France. The corporation was established in 1973 and merged with Synthélabo in 1999 to form Sanofi-Synthélabo. In 200 ...

. It has funding of approximately €80 million, some of which has come from the companies. €20 million has come from Business Finland. 500,000 blood samples are to be collected over six years by a nation-wide network of Finnish biobanks and they will be matched with national health records, 98% of which are available in an electronic format. It claims that it will manage the anonymous health registry and the genomic data without compromising the privacy and integrity of participants. The study is using

Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is an American life science and clinical research company. It is a global supplier of analytical instruments, clinical development solutions, specialty diagnostics, laboratory, pharmaceutical and biotechnology s ...

's Axiom Genotyping Solution. In February 2021, the FinnGen data resource contained data from more than 321,000 biobank sample donors. DNA samples had already been collected from about 230,000 Finns for earlier studies. The 2013 Biobank Act permitted samples to be transferred to biobanks and made available to researchers. These earlier samples were collected from people who are now getting older, so they can be related to many more disease events than the

UK Biobank UK Biobank is a long-term prospective biobank study in the United Kingdom (UK) that houses the de-identified biological samples and health-related data of half a million people. The volunteer participants aged 40-69 were recruited between 2006 ...

. The concept of ‘broad consent’ means that participants do not have to be asked to consent for their samples to be used in each project. The Finnish Biobank Cooperative was established in 2017. The first summary of results was released to the public on January 14, 2020 and will be updated every 6 months, at a one year delay with the internal findings.

History

Finnish people descend from a small founder population with little consanguinity. The low level of variants in the population structure means the chances that any disease association findings will have statistical significance are greater. Genetic discoveries can be made more easily than in more heterogeneous populations.

References

{{reflist Biobank organizations Biological databases Medical and health organisations based in Finland