China funds cancer studies as healthcare market grows

RESEARCHERS in Yorkshire have secured funding worth £1.7m from China to transfer early-stage cancer technologies from the region’s laboratories to hospitals and clinics across the world.
By The Newsroom
Published 18th Dec 2012, 06:00 BST

Scientists and clinicians at Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford and Hull universities will receive the cash for six projects focusing on cancer imaging, diagnostics and stem cell therapy.

The funding follows a workshop in Guangzhou, China, organised by the charity Yorkshire Cancer Research as part of Bradford University’s Open Innovation scheme, which aims to fuse home-grown science and technology skills with China’s expertise in science, investment and infrastructure.

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Yorkshire Cancer Research chief executive officer Charles Rowett said it was a radical new approach to securing funding and a “groundbreaking moment” for the charity.

Eleven projects were submitted to Guangzhou Development District, a regional economic development arm of the Chinese government, following a week of discussions between Yorkshire-based academics, clinicians and companies and potential Chinese collaborators.

Six have now been approved and will receive a total of £870,000 from the development arm – matched by a further £870,000 from Chinese companies that will be involved.

Yorkshire Cancer research commercialisation head Morgan Williams said it was increasingly difficult to commercialise research ideas in the current economic climate, adding: “Rather than be deflected from our task of moving cancer technologies towards the patient, we decided to help foster a regime which allows early-stage Yorkshire projects to find the initial financial and other support they need to get moving.

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“We have also given these projects a collaboration partner that will by 2020 overtake the United States as the world’s largest healthcare market; a country that any commercial development project in the cancer field will have to understand and exploit as China comes to the forefront of the global economic and healthcare landscape.”

The projects are due to start in April and work will be undertaken in Yorkshire and China. The charity hopes to fund a second workshop in 2013, which will focus on cancer therapeutics and drug delivery.

Related topics:Yorkshire Cancer ResearchYorkshireChinaLeedsSheffield