Four new industry partners join Our Future Health 

News – 6 May 2022
Our Future Health has welcomed four new industry partners, delivering a total additional investment of £40 million in the UK’s largest ever health research programme.

New partnerships

Boehringer Ingelheim, Exact Sciences, Novo Nordisk and Randox Laboratories have joined Our Future Health as funding partners. They join 10 other life sciences companies that were previously announced as funding partners in January 2022*.  

As well as investment, these leading life sciences companies will contribute their considerable expertise in discovering and developing new methods of prevention, early detection and treatment of diseases and health conditions.  

Our Future Health has also joined with 16 health research charities that have endorsed the pilot phase of the programme and are providing valuable support and experience.  Our Future Health also has initial funding of £79 million from UK Research and Innovation, the UK Government-funded body that invests in science and research. This funding is being used to set up and begin to deliver the programme.

Professor Sir Mark Caulfield Vice Principal for Health, Director of the NIHR Barts Biomedical Research Centre, Queen Mary University of London, said: “The UK leads the world in the application of genomics in healthcare. Our Future Health study is the next giant leap forward in understanding how genes and lifestyle influence health and disease across humanity.” 

The UK’s largest health research programme

Later this year Our Future Health will begin inviting members of the public to join the programme, with a goal to eventually welcome up to 5 million volunteers over the next few years. Volunteers will be asked to complete an online health questionnaire, give their informed consent to link information from their healthcare records to Our Future Health and donate a small blood sample.  

Volunteers are also being asked to give their permission for Our Future Health to contact them in the future to give them the opportunity to take part in follow-on research and to offer them personal feedback about their health, if they wish to receive it. 

Researchers from across the entire life sciences community, including academia, industry and the NHS, will be able to apply to study Our Future Health resources for their crucial research to accelerate the discovery and development of innovative diagnostics and treatments. Volunteers’ data will be de-identified and held in ‘trusted research environments’ that meet strict security criteria and an access board, including independent experts and members of the public, will ensure Our Future Health resources are only used for health research in the public interest. 

John Deanfield CBE, Professor of Cardiology, University College London, Director, National Institute for Cardiovascular Outcomes Research (NICOR) and Chief Medical Advisor of Our Future Health, said: “Our Future Health is a world leading programme which will underpin efforts to predict and prevent many of the diseases of aging.  Its scale, together with genetic and other measurements, provide a unique opportunity to evaluate innovations in diagnostics and treatment which will lead directly to better clinical care.  The new wellness ecosystem that Our Future Health will promote represents a transformative development in healthcare, from a focus on disease treatment towards personalised prevention.” 

Next steps

Members of the public who are interested in taking part in Our Future Health later this year can register for news and updates.  

Jan Nygaard Jensen, PhD, Global Head of Computational Biology and Digital Sciences at Boehringer Ingelheim, said: “We are proud to become a founding member of this exciting program. Joining Our Future Health is a continuation of Boehringer Ingelheim’s translational medicine program to realize the value of advanced analytics and data science in drug discovery and development. We believe that by combining our burgeoning expertise in biomedical artificial intelligence and computational genomics with human healthcare data at scale, we will be able to accelerate the discovery of breakthrough therapies that transform patients’ lives now and in generations to come.” 

Randox Managing Director, Dr Peter FitzGerald said: “Randox has been engaged from the very outset and is now excited to formally support this world-leading research project, both as a funding member and with our considerable expertise.    

 “With over 40 years of diagnostic experience, and extensive research capabilities, Randox knows that a personalised approach to the early detection and prevention of disease is not only critical to saving and extending life, but also to improving the quality of our lives. This project will further those critical goals. The ability for participants to receive feedback on their health from the project, and to engage with future research, also promotes Randox’s objective of greater individual ownership of health.  

  “Randox is committed to providing accessible and affordable testing to drive significant health improvements through the early detection and prevention of disease. ‘Our Future Health’ is perfectly aligned with that vision.”  

Contact: lucy.benson@ourfuturehealth.org.uk

Notes to editors 

*Our Future Health industry partners: 

The charities endorsing the pilot phase of Our Future Health: