Profitability-focused initiative is part of larger £18 million investment package for this field.

The U.K. government is dangling a £1.5 million (about $2.43 million) carrot in front of the country’s regenerative medicine companies in the form of a collaborative R&D competition call. The aim is to give businesses in the regenerative medicine field a cash-based prod to encourage them to focus more on how best to commercialize their technologies and make them profitable, according to the U.K.’s Technology Strategy Board (TSB). 

Zahid Latif, the TSB’s lead technologist in biosciences, medicines, and healthcare, claims that the U.K. is already a worldleader in the regenerative therapeutics arena, with the number of firms involved growing since 2003. “Regenerative medicine companies operate in an emerging business sector and an international environment where delivery of regenerative medicine could take on a number of different guises as the products and services are developed,” he points out.

“There has been much recent progress, but if the U.K. is to fulfil its potential in this field, there are a number of development challenges which need to be overcome to successfully commercialize promising discoveries.”

This initiative is being launched alongside a separate £3 million (approximately $4.86 million) competition related to feasibility studies in the field of regenerative medicines. Both are part of the TSB’s £18 million (roughly $29.14 million) regenerative medicines investment package launched to support key areas of commercial R&D activity. The U.K.’s major scientific research councils will be collaborating with the TSB on the program and have pledged at least another £3.5 million (about $5.67 million) in funding.

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