£8.5m Regenerative Medicine Funding Results Announced

5 Dec 2011
The Technology Strategy Board has announced the results of two competitions for funding totalling £8.5m from the Regenerative Medicine Programme - 'Tools and Technologies' and 'Developing Therapeutics 2'. Eleven of the 14 projects that will receive funding are being led by Regener8 members, highlighting a wealth of talent and innovation within the centre.

Ten of the collaborative projects will address generic challenges in the development of cell based therapies, and will lead to demonstrators with commercial applicability. Four projects will engage in the development of regenerative medicine therapeutics.

The investment in the projects, part of the Technology Strategy Board managed £21.5 million Regenerative Medicine Programme, will see funding from the Technology Strategy Board, the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The news of funding for these projects comes on the day that the Prime Minister announces a range of measures to boost the UK’s life sciences industry, including setting up a £180 million catalyst fund – to be managed by the Technology Strategy Board and the Medical Research Council – to speed-up the commercialisation of medical discoveries.

Professor John Fisher CBE, Executive Director of Regener8 comments:

“It is great to see this money being invested in creating a ‘regenerative medicine community’ in the UK. Regener8 is driving collaboration between industry and academia and funding such as this makes it possible to speed up the lengthy process of taking RegenMed therapies from the lab to the clinic.”

The fourteen projects will be led by: Altrika Ltd, Asymptote Ltd, Cell Medica Ltd, CellSeed Europe Ltd, Cellzome Ltd, ImmunoSolv Ltd, Intercytex Ltd, Kirkstall Ltd, Lonza Biologics, Neotherix Ltd, Orthox Ltd, Plasticell Ltd, Stabilitech Ltd and TAP Biosystems.

The collaborative R&D projects include work that will develop:

  • Stem cells treatments to repair corneal damage to the eye that can lead to blindness;Novel stem cell manufacturing technologies;
  • Cell labelling and tracking technologies for quality control and monitoring in the body;
  • Novel "Cell-Sheet" therapy for the treatment of heart failure;
  • Polymeric regenerative scaffold technology to improve the repair of surgical wounds.

For further information please visit the Technology Strategy Board website.