The Technology Strategy Board and the Medical Research Council (MRC) are to jointly invest over £3.7 million in seven major new research projects.
The seven projects will be lead by AstraZeneca UK Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline, Ig Innovations Ltd, Janssen UK and Randox Laboratories Ltd.
It is hoped that the funds will help to place the UK at the forefront of developments into personalised medicine.
Molecular and genomic technologies can predict in advance which patients will respond positively to a treatment – identifying and grouping these patients is termed ‘stratification’.
The Technology Strategy Board’s Chief Executive, Iain Gray, said: “Here in the UK we have many of the strengths needed to accelerate the innovation of stratified – or personalised – medicines and to become a world leader in developing medicines aimed at smaller sub-groups of patients.
“These investments are the first in a programme that is bringing scientific research, businesses and policymakers together to develop the personalised, targeted drugs and treatments of the future.”
This will be the first investment to be made through the Stratified Medicine Innovation Platform (SMIP), managed by the Technology Strategy Board.
In total the SMIP will donate over £50 million of Government funding over five years to innovative R&D in areas such as tumour profiling to improve cancer care and developing biomarkers for more effective drugs.
Arthritis Research UK has recently joined the list of full partners in the SMIP, joining the DH, the Scottish Government Health Directorates, MRC, NICE and Cancer Research UK.
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