Wellcome Trust boosts medical research funding
pharmafile | February 8, 2008 | News story | Research and Development |Â Â Â
Research charity the Wellcome Trust will increase its funding for medical research by more than £1 billion over the next five years.
The Trust is the UK's largest independent funder of medical research and aims to contribute nearly £4 billion over the next five years, up from £2.5 billion over the last five years.
Director Dr Mark Walport said the extra investment would go towards funding research aimed at tackling some of the world's major diseases.
"There are huge opportunities to advance medical research to improve health and wellbeing," he added.
The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 and funds innovative biomedical research in the UK and seeks to foster public debate about its impact on health and wellbeing.
In 2006/7 the Trust spent £520 million, on projects such the publication of results from the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, the largest ever study of the genetic influence on common diseases.
Its new funding boost will include a set of one-off additional grants totalling £500 million to be invested in large-scale biomedical science projects across the globe.
These include strengthening research capacity in Africa and the new UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation.
Based in London, the new centre is a partnership with the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK and UCL (University College London) and due to open in 2013.






