Biobankonomics: A taxonomy for evaluating the economic benefits of standardized centralized human biobanking for translational research

Investments in medical research and development enable the scientific progress that influences our society's body of knowledge about disease, the quality of health care, and our quality of life. Critical components of these investments include the technological and human capital factors rooted in human specimen biobanking, which can be considered foundational to driving post genomic scientific and medical research. Their importance to cancer research, information-based medicine, and quality of health care are becoming increasingly recognized by pharmaceutical companies, non profit foundations, academic researchers, and government research agencies. However, the failure to standardize tissue collection, handling, processing, and preservation so that data can be directly compared between specimen sets, as well as insufficient leveraging of the highest quality tissue samples and associated data across an array of research needs, have strained economies of scale for the biobanking field. Although existing biobanks for private research contribute economic benefits to stakeholders that can be easily substantiated, little has been published to demonstrate the positive outcomes generated from the use, application, and dissemination of their resources more broadly. Through the use of analogous examples, this article presents a rationale for how standardization and consolidation of biobanking resources would contribute to the realization of budget savings, cost avoidances, process efficiencies, and other financial impacts to both the research community and the public. A number of areas are examined, including laboratory analysis efficiencies, data modeling accuracy, infrastructure cost savings, reduced clinical trials evaluation costs, improvements in patient diagnosis, and the potential impact on industry professionalization and job creation. Areas for further study are also outlined. Published by Oxford University Press 2011.