The government has confirmed the allocation of £36.5m of investment to tackle motor neurone disease (MND).
The news comes on Global MND Awareness Day and just two years into a five-year funding pledge that will see a minimum of £50m leveraged to stoke the fight against MND.
The investment breaks down to:
- £7m for research grants via the Medical Research Council (MRC) to study the disease’s underlying mechanisms, support work that could unlock new therapeutics, and more
- £8m for early phase clinical research to streamline the supply chain of new treatments
- £12.5m to promote the UK Dementia Research Institute’s most innovative MND discovery science
- £6m to help sector partners share their research and join up initiatives like the MND collaborative and the UK Dementias Platform
- £1m that was announced last summer to establish the MND Collaborative Partnership which combines the expertise of people with lived experience, the third sector and researchers in one place
- £2m of additional funding to the MND Collaborative Partnership to help interpret existing research data on the condition it is to examine the underlying causes of MND and design new treatments
The residual £13.5m of funding is available to researchers via the NIHR and MRC via an open call to submit applications for the most promising projects.
“Last year we cut unnecessary red tape, enabling us to deliver funding for this crucial work even more quickly. Today, we are redoubling efforts by providing further support for the world-leading scientists and researchers who are taking the fight to MND,” said science secretary Chloe Smith.
Health secretary Steve Barclay added: “I want this vital funding to get to where it needs to be as quickly as possible so early phase studies can lead the way in helping us find new and effective treatment for those people who are living with this debilitating disease.”
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