Accelerating cancer omics and precision oncology in health care and research: a Lancet Oncology Commission

There are also substantial gains to be made through the accumulation of molecular data coupled with clinical information that are shared in an appropriate way (ie, phase 4 or real-world evidence can refine current best practice and inform ongoing therapeutic development). The advent of regulations such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which has become the gold standard of data protection regulations in many countries, has impeded data sharing and data aggregation abilities for health research, disadvantaging the group these regulations aim to protect—patients—by preventing progress in cancer research.8 The GDPR has detrimental consequences for international data sharing due to the extraterritorial scope, which means that global collaborators must also comply with the regulation when accessing data originating within the EU.9 Particularly for public entities, complying with these regulations is not feasible, which hampers the ability of international consortia (eg, International Cancer Genome Consortium Accelerating Research in Genomic Oncology [ICGC-ARGO]) from amalgamating data from different international jurisdictions and from further sharing these data with the international scientific community to progress scientific knowledge and improve public health.10 It is imperative to balance these competing priorities. [...]cancer is one of our toughest health and social issues and enabling precision oncology is a crucial mandate of our society.