Cancer Research funding to be doubled
pharmafile | April 30, 2014 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | CRUK, Cancer, brain, breast, funding, lung
Cancer Research UK is to increase its research funding by 50% over the next decade as part of a new strategy to tackle the disease across several fronts, including prevention, improving early diagnosis and finding treatments for cancers with an unmet need.
“There is an overriding belief that the next several years can, and will, transform the outlook for cancer patients,” says Harpal Kumar, the charity’s chief executive.
It will put £20 million a year into research leading to earlier diagnosis, from work to understand the early stages of cancer to tests which could detect various forms.
Funding into four types of cancer in which there has been little progress in improving survival rates – lung, pancreatic, oesophageal and brain – will be doubled.
There will also be £50 million a year more for funding streams which foster collaboration between researchers and bring together industry expertise. These include global awards worth up to £20 million to bring together industry and academia and an innovation award for ‘high risk, high reward’ research.
“Our understanding of cancer has been transformed over the last few years and our new strategy looks to place Cancer Research UK at the heart of future advances and ensure that UK cancer research continues to punch well above its weight on the international stage,” says Professor Nic Jones, Cancer Research UK’s chief scientist.
The idea of the extra cash is to attract new researchers into the field from various backgrounds and give them the opportunity to pursue their ideas.
“We want to excite the research community to tackle the biggest questions in cancer so we can accelerate our understanding in order to bring real benefits for patients,” Jones adds.
As well as immunology grants, Cancer Research UK also promises new career development awards and a multidisciplinary award to encourage approaches from physics, engineering, chemistry or maths towards cancer-related research.
Earlier this week, Cancer Research UK released figures demonstrating that 50% of people diagnosed with cancer today will survive for at least ten years – double the proportion of people in the 1970s who lived that long after diagnosis.
The new strategy is aimed towards ensuring that the figure reaches 75% in 20 years’ time.
There is a significant difference in survival rates for different cancers: for example, only 1% of pancreatic cancer patients live for ten years after diagnosis, while 78% of women with breast cancer do.
Adam Hill
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