The UK government has announced plans to invest £260m to support research and development for cutting-edge medical treatments, in addition to the manufacturing of new drugs, devices and diagnostics.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have committed £200m to be invested in enabling research to provide better access to NHS data through digital clinical trial services and Trusted Research Environments. This will make vital data more secure, easily available for research and offered with high levels of privacy.
Speaking about the government’s plans, UK Health and social care secretary Sajid Javid said: “The £200m funding into the healthcare system will deliver on government commitments set out in the Life Sciences Vision, to harness NHS data to drive health research and innovation, building on pioneering work carried out during the pandemic to develop diagnostics and treatment for COVID-19.
“This includes the RECOVERY trial which made use of NHS data through NHS DigiTrials and led to the discovery of Dexamethasone, the world’s first proven treatment for COVID-19, in just 100 days, which has saved at least a million lives across the world.”
The investment will give the NHS the ability to deliver new life-saving treatments to patients more efficiently, and will help to support more diverse and inclusive clinical research as a means of challenging existing health inequalities in patient care.
An additional £60m will support investments in commercial-scale manufacturing made by companies, including further funding for cell and gene therapies and medical devices.
The new Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund (LSIMF) will be responsible for distributing funding for manufacturing investments and will support the growth of the UK’s life sciences sector, while also creating jobs. This follows on from the success of the earlier Medicines and Diagnostics Manufacturing Transformation Fund.