UK Government announces £800m boost to support innovation and improve patient safety – PMLiVE
The UK Government has announced it will inject over £800m of funding to support specialist research facilities across the country to undertake experimental medicine research and advance the UK’s response to patient safety challenges.
The funding, which will be allocated by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), includes £790m awarded to 20 NIHR biomedical research centres (BRCs) across England over the next five years to drive innovation in the diagnosis and treatment of various high-priority disease areas including cancer, dementia and mental health.
The remaining £25m has been awarded to six NIHR patient safety research centres (PSRCs) over the next five years to help improve understanding and resolution of patient safety challenges.
Health and social care secretary and deputy Prime Minister Thérèse Coffey said: “The pandemic has highlighted the importance of our booming research sector and the potential it has to not only strengthen health and care services, but lead to lifesaving developments.
“This additional funding will harness the UK’s world-leading innovation and allow research centres up and down the country to attract experts in their field and conduct research that saves lives.”
Crucially, the funding will be distributed across England to increase the coverage of experimental medicine, with over £260m being invested outside of London, Oxford and Cambridge. It is hoped that this will not only enable more areas to benefit from innovation, but help improve health and care across the country and reduce health inequities.
The boost is also set to improve regional economic growth through employment opportunities and give private sector organisations confidence to continue to invest in research.
The NIHR BRCs have supported almost 60,000 experimental medicine research studies over the past nine years including the development of the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, as well as promising new treatments for motor neurone disease and haemophilia.
“Our NIHR clinical research infrastructure provides crucial access to expertise in designing and delivering high quality, innovative research for the life sciences industry. This supports companies to conduct their clinical studies of new treatments in the UK for patient and public benefit and grows the UK’s share of the global market,” said minister of state for health, Robert Jenrick.
“We’re continuing to build on our world-leading advances to find new treatments and better diagnose illness as well as better understand how we can improve patient safety,” he added.