Thursday August 7, 01:40 AM
Medical research powerhouse created [at Financial Times]
By Salamander Davoudi, Biotechnology Correspondent
Five of Britain's top medical centres are forming an academic partnership to create a research powerhouse in clinical medicine that will be the largest in Europe. UCL Partners will bring together four London-based NHS Trusts and University
College London - or 3,500 scientists, senior researchers and consultants.The initial focus will be on 10 core areas of research: the nervous system, children's health, heart disease, transplantation, immunology, ophthalmology, deafness and hearing impairment, dental and oral disease and women's health. Neil Goodwin, a project director at UCL, said: "People are currently talking to each other in an ad hoc informal way. This initiative is about establishing more effective relationships." The creation of UCL Partners, which will have an annual turnover of £2bn ($4bn), follows an established trend in the US. The top 16 hospitals there are already part of academic health science centres, and enjoy a close relationship between research and clinical practice. "These partnerships have become hubs of innovation, with clinicians and researchers creating spin-off companies that create new treatments," according to a report by UCL. "The UK now spends half as much on research as a proportion of GDP as the US. The number of commercial drug trials taking place in India and Russia is growing exponentially. In the UK, it is static." UCL hopes the initiative will speed up the translation of research into practical benefit for patients. The NHS Trusts are Great Ormond Street hospital for children, Moorfields Eye hospital, the Royal Free Hampstead and University College London hospitals.
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