UK to set up £500 million medical innovation centre in central London

Image courtesy NIH

The site is opposite the headquarters of the Wellcome Trust, and in proximity to the other sponsors, Cancer Research UK, Europe’s largest cancer research charity, the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and University College London (UCL). The technology transfer arms of the MRC and Cancer Research UK will be moving to the building, along with scientists from the two organisations.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown claimed the plan would see the creation of Europe’s leading centre for medical research. “By taking groundbreaking scientific discoveries right through to treatment, I expect that the 1,500 staff who will be part of this project will develop many of the cures, vaccines and drugs from which the National Health Service and its patients will benefit in years to come."

The centre is expected to be ready by the end of 2013. Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse, President of Rockefeller University, New York, will lead the scientific planning to determine the shape and direction of research work to be carried out and the facilities that will be needed to enable this.

The sponsors of the project are equating it to global hubs of scientific and medical excellence such as Biopolis in Singapore, the Allston Initiative at Harvard and the Shanghai Science-based Industrial Park in China.

The centre will bring together teams of scientists from the MRC's National Institute for Medical Research, Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute and UCL. They will work closely with researchers located in surrounding universities and teaching hospitals. The Wellcome Trust will fund scientists working at the centre, further adding to the interdisciplinary mix.

The overall research focus will be the development of treatments to tackle and overcome serious diseases, including threats posed by viruses such as 'flu and HIV, bacterial diseases like meningitis and tuberculosis and all diseases arising from modern lifestyles including cancers, stroke, heart disease and diabetes.

The centre will also have a brief to train medical scientists to translate the findings of research into health benefits.

The chief executive of the MRC, Leszek Borysiewicz, said the centre will form a hub for innovation. “[It will be of] crucial importance to the UK’s plans to ensure that medical research findings are turned into benefits for patients and the economy as efficiently as possible.”

“The centre will not only bring together academics and clinicians but also offer opportunities for industry to work with, and alongside, our researchers. This will be enhanced by relocating the technology arms of Cancer Research UK and the MRC to this site.”