Investing in dementia research in the UK

The UK Government continues to create a supportive business environment in the UK by incentivising innovation and increase the levels of funding into dementia research.

Working with academia, industry, the NHS and research charities, the UK Government is committed to help in improving the research, diagnosis, treatment, care and communities to benefit people with dementia in the UK and abroad.

Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia

Launched in 2012, the Prime Minister’s Challengeon Dementia outlined an ambitious programme of work that will push further and faster to deliver major improvements in dementia care and research by 2015, building on the achievements of the existing National Dementia Strategy.

The challenge has focussed on priority areas to ensure there are opportunities for the best innovations to progress through the pipeline to ensure patients are treated and cared for and are citizens of a dementia friendly community that is supported by a rich dementia discovery, development and delivery environment.

Opportunities for businesses

UKTI can help overseas businesses and industry identify and access opportunities in dementia research in the UK which can offer the industry access to:

Work with UK researchers to further dementia discovery:

  • World class UK researchers are developing new tools and scientific approaches in Foundational Neurobiology, Cognitive neuroscience, Genetic research, Imaging and Social care research to understand the disease, improve diagnosis, test new treatments and care approaches and look for risk factors.

  • Research funders and charities such as, The Medical Research Council, The Wellcome Trust, Alzheimer’s Research UK and Alzheimer’s Society are building capabilities and directly support academic research and partnership with industry.

Improve the quality and efficiency of clinical development:

  • £500 million spent annually on an infrastructure to support experimental medicine and clinical trials in the NHS in England through the National Institute for Health Research.

  • The National Institute for Health Research Translational Research Collaboration in Dementia is set up to enable translation of research into the clinic, it brings together the considerable world-leading expertise and resources within the NIHR Dementia Biomedical Research Units and Centres, to reduce the costs of commercial and non-commercial research and to answer questions about early diagnosis, patient stratification and novel therapeutics.

  • Dementia clinical research networks across the UK support the development, set-up and delivery of clinical studies in the NHS, working collaboratively with industry, NHS organisations and each other to ensure clinical trials are delivered at pace.

UK Dementia Statistics

800,000 people living with dementia in the UK, a number that will grow to 1million in less than 10 years

– Dementia costs the UK economy $37 billion per year, more than cancer and heart disease combined

Commercialise and launch products and services for delivery directly to patients:

  • Robust regulatory and health technology assessments ensure portability of your products and services across the world. Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Innovation Office helps organisations who are developing innovative medicines, medical devices or novel manufacturing processes navigate the regulatory processes in order to be able to progress their products or technologies.

  • The UK Government commits to opening up the NHS to collaborate with your business on research and adoption and to ensure that products and services are critically appraised to the highest standard via the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)

  • NHS access points facilitate uptake and diffusion of your products and services directly to patients. Combining research and adoption of innovative products and services, the 15 new Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) will facilitate access into the NHS and align education, clinical research, informatics, innovation, training and healthcare delivery. AHSNs present a unique opportunity to pull together the adoption and spread of innovation with clinical research and trials, informatics, education, and healthcare delivery. Working at a network to network level

Data resources to enable research, to drive clinical translation and to deliver and monitor real-world outcomes:

  • The UK is collecting a range of data samples that will exploit data from the lab, clinical-based studies and NHS records to drive your discovery through to development and delivery of care

  • The new Clinical Practice Research Datalink, already being used by industry, is maximising the way anonyms NHS clinical data can be linked to support research, clinical trial feasibility and protocol optimisation

  • UK Biobank is a unique resource of data and samples linked to health records from 500,000 participants. This powerful dataset is being used by researchers in academia and industry anywhere in the world to serve health related research in the public interest. The Medical Research Council and Department of Health have jointly been awarded £20 million to enable all 500,000 Biobank participants to be genotyped, with a particular focus on the identifying the genetic signature associated with risk of developing of dementia

  • The National Institute for Health Research BioResource is being scaled into a national cohort of healthy volunteers and patients willing to provide clinical information and samples that enable recall to studies by genotype and phenotype

  • The Medical Research Council UK Brain Banks Network, provides high quality brain tissue to scientists and clinicians to carry out cutting edge neurosciences research, and will support major initiatives on research into neurological disorders

  • The Medical Research Council UK Stem Cell Bank is responsible for storing, characterising and supplying ethically-approved, quality-controlled stem cell lines for medical research and treatment

  • There is a major investment in brain scanning: £9.6million is being provided by the Medical Research Council for a pilot study involving 8,000 volunteers as the first phase of a brain imaging programme that will ultimately scan the brains of 100,000 people.

Investing in UK Life Science

The UK is committed to building a globally competitive integrated health economy including strengthening the business environment that supports and rewards innovation ensuring that it is the global location of choice for life science investment.

More on investing in UK Life Science.

Contact us

The UKTI LSIO is your guide to identifying research, development and delivery partners and will support you through every step of investing in and working in the UK. Providing further information in a range of areas such as market opportunities, local skills and expertise, industry clusters, universities, incentives and funding support you can contact the UKTI LSIO team by completing an online enquiry form.

Sectors: Science
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