The Novo Nordisk Foundation has announced a gift of more than $150 million (990 million Danish kroner) over four and a half years to establish a National Genome Center in Denmark.

The foundation awarded an initial 102 million kroner ($15.6 million) to begin setting up a data and information technology unit at the center and an additional 30 million kroner ($4.6 million) to the Danish Ministry of Health in support of the ministry's efforts to involve leading experts from Denmark and elsewhere in its planning and operations.

Genome sequencing facilities will be established in Aarhus and Copenhagen, and the ministry expects that approximately sixty thousand people will undergo whole-genome sequencing in the center's first five years. The sequencing and processing will be based at public institutions, and security in storing and using the data will be accorded the highest priority.

"The foundation has decided to support the National Genome Center to create opportunities for improving and targeting treatment services for numerous disease areas to benefit individual patients," said Novo Nordisk Foundation chair Lars Rebien Sørensen. "We have a unique opportunity to set the pace for using this new knowledge about our genes to help doctors in combating disease and saving people's lives."