Genomics at Scale: Bridging UK Innovation, Healthcare, and Life Sciences

Sian Jarvis

Chief Public Policy Officer – Genomics

This article is a sponsored feature, produced in partnership with Genomics ltd.

In this conversation, Professor Sir Peter Donnelly explains how Genomics is turning cutting-edge polygenic risk science into scalable tools for the NHS and global pharma, showing why the UK’s genomics leadership now needs commercial ambition as much as scientific excellence.

The UK is the global leader in genetics and genomics. Our scientists are transforming healthcare and life sciences, helping improve millions of lives and placing Britain at the forefront of a new era in preventative, personalised medicine. The UK sequenced the genomes (the entirety of an individual’s DNA) of 500,000 participants in a landmark national programme, and NHS hospitals are running world-first newborn screening studies to test for rare genetic conditions – enabling earlier diagnosis and treatment.

There is a crucial need not only to support this scientific innovation, but to scale it – creating high-value jobs, driving UK economic growth and competitiveness, and ensuring discoveries translate into real-world impact within the NHS. The Government’s NHS 10-Year Plan signalled a clear shift from treating illness to preventing it, and highlighted that genomics has a central role to play in delivering that ambition.

Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes have a devastating impact on individuals. They also account for 70 per cent of the annual expenditure of the NHS in England. Now, there is exciting potential to use genetic information to improve patient outcomes and deliver on the plan, with Wes Streeting describing genomics as a tool that could “leapfrog disease, so we’re in front of it rather than reacting to it”.

In February 2026, Genomics Limited opened its flagship office in the heart of the Knowledge Quarter in London – inaugurated by Dr Zubir Ahmed, Minister for Health Innovation and Safety, and Steve Bates OBE, Executive Chair, Office of Life Sciences. Genomics Chief Public Policy Officer, Sian Jarvis, spoke with CEO and Co-Founder, Peter Donnelly, to discuss the potential of Genomics to transform healthcare and the importance of supporting scientific innovation in the UK.

Genomics Interview

Sian: Peter, please could you introduce yourself and tell us about Genomics?

Peter:
Thanks, Sian. I am Professor Sir Peter Donnelly, the CEO and co-Founder of Genomics. I was an academic for most of my career and played a role in the “Genetic Revolution”, which transformed our knowledge of the genetics of common diseases. Together with three colleagues from the University of Oxford, Genomics was founded in 2014 to change how the world predicts, prevents, treats and cures disease. Our vision: to use world-class science to help people live longer, healthier lives.

We work in healthcare – improving the way we can predict people’s risk of disease as early as possible – and in life sciences – supporting pharmaceutical and biotech companies to identify and validate new drug targets and to identify the patients who will most benefit from drugs.

The impact of genomics on healthcare in the UK is more significant than ever. Genetics is a critical risk factor for all the common diseases, meaning we can use an individual’s DNA to identify their risk of developing a disease years before symptoms appear – improving health outcomes for patients and easing the pressure placed on doctors and the resources of health systems like the NHS. We can do this using something called a polygenic risk score.

Sian: How can looking at genetics help identify disease risk earlier, and how will this be implemented?

Peter:

Until a few years ago, if you had the entire DNA sequence of a healthy person in early middle age, you would learn something medically actionable in only 1–2 per cent of cases. Recently, that position has changed dramatically. Now, if you have genomic information on that same person, you learn something medically actionable in 70 per cent of cases.

There are potentially a million points in an individual’s DNA that influence the development of a common disease. (This is different to rare diseases where a single gene is responsible, for example, Huntington’s disease.) A polygenic risk score (PRS) combines this information with traditional clinical factors like age to develop a personalised estimate of disease risk, meaning it can be used to flag elevated risk years before symptoms appear.

We were delighted that a Genomic Population Health Service – which will be transformative – was included in the Government’s plan. As part of this service, PRS will be offered universally, with the first implementation occurring this year. Having a much more powerful understanding of which diseases each of us is most at risk for will allow the NHS to get the right people into the right screening, prevention, and treatment programmes, at the right time.

At Genomics, we are proud to be the world leader in PRS. The potential of PRS to identify disease risk alone, or in conjunction with clinical risk tools, is huge – and we have seen this approach work first-hand. In 2022, we announced results from a world-first pilot that we conducted within the NHS in the North East, using PRS to improve cardiovascular disease prevention. Over 98.5 per cent of patients found the information useful for their health.

Sian: What does the opening of Genomics’ new flagship office signify with regard to scientific innovation within the UK?

Peter:
The opening of our London flagship office marks an important step in our growth journey and in how we are supporting science-led innovation in the UK. As Dr Ahmed said at the inauguration, “When companies like you succeed, our country genuinely succeeds.” That captures something important: supporting innovative, science-led companies is essential, not only for better health outcomes, but for economic growth.

For Genomics, it also demonstrates the scale we’ve achieved. We now employ around 130 people, with offices in the UK and the US, and a lab in the US, showing that UK-based companies can grow internationally whilst creating high-value jobs, retaining intellectual property, and inspiring the next generation of scientists.

Sian: Looking ahead, what does success look like?

Peter:

We are currently world-leading on both sides of our business. In our life sciences division, we have the world’s largest and deepest human genetic database, linking genetic changes in people to many different outcomes. (To give a sense of scale, one of our data tables has over two trillion rows.) The agentic AI interface for our drug discovery platform, Mystra, democratises the ability to get super valuable insights from that data to inform drug discovery and development. Our Pharma partners are starting work on around 10 of the novel drug targets we discovered last year. In healthcare, our MHRA-registered PRS test is now available through a number of partners in the UK and in the US, and we’re expanding to other countries soon.

But I really see that as just the beginning. We’re at an inflexion point as the amount of genetic data explodes. By 2035, there will be extensive DNA information on over 500 million people, with much of that linked for research in anonymised ways to their medical records. The opportunities to make a difference through our expertise, our AI tools, and our deep experience in working across the pharmaceutical industry and in healthcare are eye-watering. The NHS predicts, and I think they’re right, that by 2035, half of all healthcare interactions will be underpinned by genomics or predictive analytics.

So, the future in this space is incredibly exciting, and we’re planning to stay right at the centre of that.

This article features in the new edition of ChamberUK. Our parliamentary journal.

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