Last week, diagnostics services provider Quest Diagnostics and Inserm, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research institution, announced the launch of BRCA Share, a new datashare initiative that will provide scientists and laboratory organizations with open access to BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic data.  According to the initiative's co-founders, the program is intended to accelerate research on BRCA gene mutations, particularly variants of uncertain significance, in order to improve the ability of clinical diagnostics laboratories to predict which individuals are at risk of developing hereditary breast and ovarian cancers.  The initiative also announced that the program's first participant would be Laboratory Corporation of America® Holdings (LabCorp®).

According to the release on the datasharing initiative, BRCA Share builds on a BRCA gene data collection process developed by Inserm, which was developed over the past decade by sixteen laboratories in France that make up the Unicancer Genetic Group (UGG).  By pooling clinical laboratory patient data on BRCA1 and BRCA2, members of BRCA Share will help improve risk-assessment for certain cancers by providing greater insight into gene variants of uncertain significance (VUS).  The program will be funded by its members on a sliding scale in order to encourage laboratories of all sizes to participate.  Researchers and research entities focusing on BRCA will be permitted to participate at no charge.  Under BRCA Share, any commercial lab or academic party participating in the program will receive a sublicense provided that the sublicensee agrees to share BRCA data with the other members.

The datashare initiative launched by Quest Diagnostics and Inserm is not the first such effort to collect BRCA data.  In June 2013, Genetic Alliance announced the Free the Data! initiative, which was founded to fill the public information gap caused by the lack of available genetic information for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, and which included the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and InVitae Corporation among its primary founders (see "Consortium Launches Public Database of BRCA Data").

Additional information regarding the BRCA Share initiative can be found here.