Amy Klobuchar

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) affirmed her commitment to medical innovation and precision medicine today during a tour of the Mayo Clinic Biorepositories' new state-of-the-art space in northwest Rochester. "President Obama made precision medicine a common term ... and I'm delighted to be here to see first-hand the work that has been going here at Mayo Clinic for quite some time," Klobuchar said. "We need to continue to support medical research and fund the NIH—we increasingly are facing international competition." Obama announced the NIH's $270 million Precision Medicine Initiative on January 20 during this year's State of the Union Address, thrusting the relatively obscure medical term into the national spotlight and launching a national dialogue about medical innovation and genomics in clinical care. Klobuchar called the initiative "imperative" to the future of health care in the United States and a key component of the local and state economies. "America has always been a leader (in health innovation)," Klobuchar said. "We want those dollars, those jobs, right here in Rochester, in the Twin Cities."