Description of organisation
Global Action 4 Health Institute Ltd. (GA4H), based in Dublin, Ireland, presents a novel commercial idea bringing together world leaders in complementary fields of activity related to drug development. GA4H is a consulting partnership covering a broad spectrum of expertise and networks which are key to Pharma and Biotech companies. The expertise is available in the areas of science, regulation, entrepreneurship and venture capital.
GA4H serves as a one stop shop for Pharma with several technology platforms available within the network provided by and available to the company. The founding partners and core expertise are Prof. Peter BOYLE, epidemiology of chronic diseases, public health; Prof. Kurt ZATLOUKAL, molecular pathology and biobanking; Prof. Hans LEHRACH, molecular genetics and systems biology; Mr. David BYRNE, (former EC Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection) public health and consumer protection law, regulatory; Mr. Geoffrey HAMILTON FAIRLEY, entrepreneur and biotech industry; and Mr. Markus PASTERK, Research policy, scientific programme management. GA4H provides the following services for the private and public sector: (i) High level consultancy in fields of clinical and pre clinical research; (ii) Drug pipeline evaluation and prioritisation support based on precision medicine (R&D); (iii) Biomarker (companion diagnostics) development (R&D); (iv) Critical evaluation of medicines which have failed Phase II or Phase III clinical trials (R&D); (v) Innovation in Clinical Evaluation, for instance the evaluation of appropriateness of Phase I, II, III paradigm and study design of targeted therapy (consultancy); and (vi) Guidance of analytical and diagnostics companies towards the health care market (consultancy). These services will be provided through subcontracting with related partnerships and entities, with co venture financing or as Principal Investigators. Consultancy will be provided mainly by the named founders.
Previous experience
All founding partners of GA4H have long lasting experience in leading and finalising large size R&D projects funded both from private (e.g. Diabetes Treatments and Cancer Risk using Prescription Databases in Northern European Countries) or public sources (EUROCANPLUS+; BBMRI preparatory phase) or in successfully setting up new R&D companies (e.g. OncImmune Ltd, Nottingham, UK or IPRI SAS, Lyon, FR). All founders have substantial experience working in leading roles both in the public and private sector. GA4H, founded only in January 2012, has submitted one proposal as coordinator in the field of Metabolomics to a previous call of FP7 as well as has been asked to be a partner in another recently submitted FP7 application in the health field.
Profile of staff members
Mr. David Byrne was Attorney General of the Republic of Ireland before he became European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection from 1999 2004. In this time as Commissioner among others he could successfully implement new public health prevention laws like the tobacco regulations (EU anti tobacco legislation and improvement of health protection measures for European citizens). Since retiring from membership of the EU Commission, Mr. Byrne acted as Special Envoy to the Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on a project to amend the International Health Regulations dealing with the monitoring, surveillance and response to global
communicable diseases such as SARS and Avian influenza. These regulations were adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2005 and are the second of the two global health treaties sponsored by the WHO. He served as the chair of the International Ethics committee of the International Agency for Research of Cancer and is currently chair of the equvalent body of IPRI. He currently serves also as the Co chair of the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine. Mr. Markus Pasterk is a renown expert in International Governance and Management. He serves as (Acting) Director General for Research and International Affairs for the Government of Austria before he was appointed Scientific Coordinator of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a WHO Agency in Lyon. He was participating in many EU projects in leading positions, most recent responsible for Global Integration in the Executive Team of the BBMRI project. Today he is Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of IPRI and a founding Member of GA4H. In this capacity he will be responsible for high level governance advise to ITFoM.
Five recent publications relevant to the project
Bowis J & Byrne D. 2012, Manifesto September 2012; Recommendations by the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine http://img.euapm.eu/resources/eapmmanifesto.pdf
Cambon Thomsen A, Thorisson GA, Mabile L, Andrieu S, Bertier G, Boeckhout M, Carpenter J, Dagher G, Dalgleish R, Deschenes M, di Donato JH, Filocamo M, Goldberg M, Hewitt R, Hofman P, Kauffmann F, Leitsalu L, Lomba I, Melegh Bela, Metspalu Am Miranda L, Napolitani F, Oestergaard MZ, Parodi B, Pasterk M, Reiche A, Rial Sebbag E, Rivalle G, Rochaix P, Susbielle G, Tarasova L, Thomsen M, Zawati MH, Zins M. The role of a bioresource research impact factor as an incentive to share human bioresources. Nat Genet. 2011 Jun;43(6):503 504
Lehrach H, Müller H, Bruggeman FJ, Subrak R, Boyle P, Pasterk M, Zatloukal K, Hubbard T, Brand A, Girolami M, Jameson D, Westerhoff HV. ITFoM – The IT Future of Medicine. Procedia Comput Sci. 2011;7:26 29.
Harris JR, Burton P, Knoppers BM, Lindpaintner K, Bledsoe M, Brookes AJ, Budin Ljøsne I, Chisholm R, Cox D, Deschênes M, Fortier I, Hainaut P, Hewitt R, Kaye J, Litton JE, Metspalu A, Ollier B, Palmer LJ, Palotie A, Pasterk M, Perola M, Riegman PH, van Ommen GJ, Yuille M, Zatloukal K. Toward a roadmap in global biobanking for health. Eur J Hum Genet. 2012 Jun 20. doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2012.96.
