Government Announce £82.6m AI Research Funding to Transform British Cancer Care and New Drug Breakthroughs

Government Press Release

The UK government is unveiling £82.6 million in research funding, to give UK researchers resources to be able to unlock the power of AI.

Out of three projects, two of the projects will support companies to tackle diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s, as well as accelerating drug breakthroughs in the health sector.

As Day 2 of the AI Action Summit kicks off, the government demonstrates its ongoing commitment to harnessing the potential of emerging technologies like AI to advance the Plan for Change, driving economic growth and progress in areas such as healthcare.

How much is the Government investing in research projects?

The Government is investing £37.9 million in three ground-breaking British research projects through the Research Ventures Catalyst (RVC) programme. With an additional £44.7 million in co-investment from other sources, the total backing for these projects amounts to £82.6 million.

The RVC programme is introducing innovative funding approaches, including endowments that are flexible and tailored to the needs of cutting-edge innovators. Traditional, inflexible funding has often been a barrier to breakthrough research and hindered the growth of innovative businesses – but the RVC programme will support pioneering efforts, such as training AI on the NHS’s vast cancer data, advancing drug discovery research, and more.

These announcements come on the final day of the AI Action Summit in France, where world leaders and AI companies have been discussing the global opportunities that AI can offer. The UK government has prioritized AI as a key area for 2025.

Quoted in the Government press release, Science and Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, stated:

The focus of this Summit has been on how we can put AI to work in the public interest, and today’s announcements are living proof of how the UK is leading that charge through our Plan for Change.  

We’ve already set out a bold new blueprint for AI which will help to spark a decade of national renewal, and key to that plan is supporting our expert researchers and businesses with the support they need to drive forward their game-changing innovations. 

Today, we open new avenues for them to do exactly that – building bridges with our international partners so the entire global community can share in the boundless opportunities of AI-powered progress and backing new innovative companies applying AI to tackle real-world challenges.

Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, added:

NHS innovation saved my life when I was diagnosed with cancer and treated by a world-class surgeon equipped with a robot. I want more patients to benefit from this kind of ground-breaking treatment, and AI will be central to our efforts.

This new funding is another step to unlock the enormous potential of AI for cancer research and drug discovery – ensuring more patients like me experience the highest quality care.

AI will help us speed up diagnoses, cut waiting times for patients and free up staff, as we deliver our Plan for Change and shift the NHS from analogue to digital.

The three projects being funded through the Research Ventures Catalyst (RVC) programme are as follows: (from the Government website)

• PharosAI: £18.9 million government funding plus £24.7 million co-investment. PharosAI, whose King’s College London site is being visited by AI Minister Clark today, will bring together decades of NHS and Biobank data and host it on a unified, powerful, secure, AI platform. This will revolutionise cancer care by accelerating the development of the next generation of AI models which will deliver new breakthroughs for diagnosing and treating the disease – transforming outcomes for patients and saving lives.
• Bind Research: £12.9 million government funding plus £12.9 million co-investment. The team at Bind Research meanwhile will tap into AI to learn the rules of drugging currently undruggable proteins, offering hope to cure diseases that were once thought to be untreatable. It will do this by targeting disordered proteins associated with various diseases which could unlock scores of new avenues for treatment – potentially giving thousands of patients across the country a new lifeline.
• MEMetic: £6.1 million government funding plus £7.1 million co-investment. MEMetic will receive funding for work to revolutionise water management by combining nature’s highly evolved solutions with state-of-the-art polymer chemistry. This will support them to develop new solutions in a range of fields from lithium recovery in battery recycling, to facilitating clean water access – helping the world tackle the climate crisis.

Read the whole press release here.