Polygenic tests rolled out across UK private sector

Private health providers across the UK will offer a polygenic-score-based test to assess long-term health risks.

The polygenic test uses DNA extracted from a saliva sample, to look at genetic variations at many different locations within the genome. It is already offered by Bupa (see BioNews 1280), and will now be available through Well Life Clinics, and Spire Healthcare, the largest private hospital provider in the UK.

Professor Sir Peter Donnelly, co-founder and chief executive of the test's maker Genomics plc, said: 'We see this as a way to transform healthcare, to advance the prevention agenda and to enable doctors to get the right individuals into the right treatment, prevention and screening programmes at the right time, but critically also to give each of us as an individual the information we need to navigate our path and reduce our risks'.

The test, called Health Insights, is the first of its kind to be registered with the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and carry the UK Conformity Assessed mark.

The DNA is processed in a laboratory and then analysed using machine learning in the context of a person's other risk factors such as age, sex, and ethnicity to generate polygenic risk scores for a range of common conditions, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, prostate cancer, and breast cancer.

The scores are not diagnostic but are marketed as a way to predict future health outcomes, which healthcare providers and insurers can use to anticipate future prevention and care needs. However, there is still limited evidence that polygenic scores are predictive on an individual – rather than population – level.

The test is not currently available to NHS patients, although the NHS has previously evaluated other polygenic tests through clinical trials (see BioNews 1167, 1129 and 1089).

'The NHS long-term plan comes out early next month, so we'll watch that with interest,' said Professor Donnelly. 'We are all passionate about the NHS, and we would love to have it offered to NHS patients.'