Wednesday 1st August 2012 | 00:01

Extracts of Prime Minister's speech to Global Health Policy Summit

Downing Street press release

The Prime Minister is expected to say:

"There's a British strength I'm keen to tell you about, too. The way we are going to use the incredible knowledge base offered by the NHS.

"Drug development relies more and more on real-time data. The UK is going to be the world leader when it comes to making this kind of data available and we're going to do this by harnessing the incredible data collected by our National Health Service.

"We are about to consult on changing the NHS constitution so that the default setting is for patients' data to be used for research unless the patient opts out. This will make anonymised data available to scientists and researchers on a scale never seen before.

"And it will help make the UK the best place in the world to carry out cutting edge research.

"I want this research to bring breakthroughs in long neglected areas like dementia where the burden of the disease is immense but the obstacles to prevention and cure are equally large. That's why I launched a Challenge on Dementia back in March - doubling the dementia research budget and supporting all researchers. From those discovering the biological mechanisms of the disease through to the social scientists establishing what helps people live well with dementia.

"It's this spirit of collaboration and open innovation, nationally and internationally, that has inspired a great new project that I'd like to tell you about today. It starts with technology and expertise used to test athletes for drugs at London 2012.

"When the games close, all this incredible equipment and expertise will be used to establish a new Phenome Centre for research into biological markers of health and disease. This will take advantage of the extraordinary opportunities that lie in combining genetic data with the results of medical tests on tissues and blood. It will allow us to understand the characteristics of disease and how these link into genes and our environment.

"It's an impressive example of collaboration between top-class research, the NHS and industry. It will produce new forms of drugs - and it will lead the world in the development of precision medicine.

"And it's an example of the way I think the future of health care is headed. Around the planet, we are seeing a fundamental shift away from monolithic, one-size fits all treatments towards a new age of individually-tailored medicine.

"We need to face up to the growing impact of non-communicable diseases - things like dementia and obesity. We can only rise to meet these challenges by working together and driving forward innovation.

"That's my message today. Britain is open for business, open for partnership and open to ideas. I am determined that this country becomes the best place in the world to invest and innovate in life sciences."