Genomics. University company to exploit heart data.

Abstract

This month, Boston University, which directs the Framingham Heart Study, a massive government effort begun in 1948 to monitor the cardiovascular health of more than 10,000 residents of this suburb of Boston, announced plans to form a bioinformatics company that will mine the data. The university will own 20% of Framingham Genomic Medicine Inc., which hopes to raise $21 million to begin modernizing the immense database and packaging it in a format that will be valuable to the pharmaceutical industry. The plan raises a host of difficult ethical issues, including patient privacy, academic conflicts of interest, and reciprocal value to the Framingham residents whose medical data will form the basis for the new enterprise.