the patients DNA record can be called up and a suitable drug can be synthesized or selected on-the-fly Wonderful stuff, if you can do it reliably. The issue comes down to cost vs. benefit. This sort of example I would suggest is a "once in a blue moon" occurrence (Reynolds?). If you're a regular reader here you may have picked up on a recurring theme of cost savings at the expense of service delivery. There are numerous other NHS activities that would benefit the patients far more if given the money from this project than the database itself will ever benefit and thats assuming that this database will work properly (cancer drugs that NICE can't approve because they're too expensive for example). This is yet another "solution" from a government obsessed with technological solutions to people problems which will not work. I say this as someone with 25 years in the IT industry, a PC in every room (except the bathroom) and a server under the stairs so I'm no luddite.