in both discovery and implementation, since data generated in the course of clinical care is reused for research purposes.8 Further, the genetic datasets, once generated, can be reused for multiple analyses. This idea was initially developed by the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium,9 and has been validated on multiple occasions by individual biobanks8 and across the eMERGE Network.10 One study8 in BioVU, the Vanderbilt DNA biobank that now includes DNA samples from >215,000 subjects and is also a participant in eMERGE, compared the costs and time required for traditional NIH-supported pharmacogenetic studies to those in a large pharmacogenetic project in BioVU. The BioVU cohorts were larger (median 1,123 vs 623), less expensive to generate ($76,674 vs $1,335,927), and required less time to generate (3 months versus 3 years), recognizing that the costs of developing the EHR itself – a by-product of routine healthcare – are not factored into these calculations.
