Four UK research councils—the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (ESPRC), the Economic and Social Research Council and the Medical Research Council (MRC)—along with the Technology Strategy Board have released a report reviewing UK regenerative medicine research. The report details the 353 grants totaling £72.6 million ($115.1 million) given by six government organizations as part of November 2010’s Regenerative Medicine Portfolio. The six sponsors are the five agencies that produced the report and the National Institute of Health Research. Of the funding, 89% went to research, 7% went to training and 3% went to resources. By application type, 45% of the money was for research on adult stem/progenitor cells and 19% was for research on embryonic stem cells. Therapy development comprised 78% of total funding. Of this amount, 54% went to grants for Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 1, which is defined as “basic principles observed and reported.” Platform development accounted for 19% of total funding. By platform type, 21% of funding went to disease/safety modeling, 20% went to imaging and 18% went to cell culture research. TRL 3, which is the stage active R&D begins, represented 53% of platform spending. Grants for socioeconomic understanding accounted for 3% of total funding. The report also noted that the MRC, EPSRC and BBSRC will establish a £25 million UK Regenerative Research Platform.

Source: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council