The achievement of the $1,000 genome was a significant technological and psychological breakthrough. It paved the way for the next-generation sequencing revolution we see today. President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative, a $215 million investment in his FY2016 Budget, is another important milestone, as is the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine, recently announced by Governor Brown.

Are these developments enough to accelerate long-promised biomedical discoveries and empower life science companies to develop and deliver powerful new targeted therapies, diagnostics and medical devices? Will they provide researchers and clinicians with new tools and knowledge to translate often-nebulous “big data” into actionable science and medicine?

During this session J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., pioneer and advocate for the power of genomics, will focus on the potential of President Obama’s Initiative to aid the life sciences industry’s efforts to transform patients’ lives through powerful new discoveries and deliver new treatments that are tailored to specific characteristics of individuals, such as a person’s genetic makeup, or the genetic profile of an individual’s tumor.

As a visionary with direct input into President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative, Dr. Venter will address the opportunities for public-private relationships under this Initiative, weigh in on the policy framework needed to support further innovation in this field, and discuss when to expect a large and reliable database of genomes, metabolites, lifestyles, and other information that affect patient care.