The Technology Strategy Board, together with the DH, the Scottish Government Health Directorates, the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), is to bring the Government, researchers and business together in a major initiative that will place the UK at the centre of a revolution in the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
The new programme – called the Stratified Medicines Innovation Platform – will oversee an investment of over £50 million of Government funding in innovative research and development in areas such as tumour profiling to improve cancer care and developing biomarkers for more effective drugs. The first competitions, worth up to £11 million, open in January 2011. Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: “This is one of the most important programmes that Cancer Research UK has ever been involved in. We need to start work now to ensure that the NHS is ready to deal with the new generation of targeted treatments that are emerging. Through this project, we will have a wealth of genetic information in two years that could be used to develop the personalised cancer drugs of the future. Most importantly, cancer patients will have access to the best possible technology to help determine which treatments are best for them.”
